Continuity essential for public sector organisations

The most important element for a public sector organisation to succeed is ‘continuity’ at the top, according to a top corporate leader.
“The issue with the government corporations is that when governments or the heads of governments change, new boards and managements are appointed. These people do not have the opportunity to understand the organisation and work at the rate they are replaced. As such there is no continuity and these public sector organisations do not work efficiently. We desperately need to get out of this quagmire,” Hemas Holdings Chairman, Lalith de Mel who held several government positions in the Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga government said.

He said that any government agency will work only if there is commitment from the top to make them work. “The top management should be trained in the relevant areas, while keeping them at their positions for a long time and they should be given the freedom to act without political interference,” he said. De Mel said that politicians should confine themselves to set out policy framework and they should not appoint people purely for political reasons. “A good example is Singapore,” he said.

While insisting that his public sector services career was over, he said “During my last tenure as the Chairman BOI, I noticed in a newspaper that the then Minister Anura Bandaranaike wanted to sack the entire top management of the organization. They had all been recruited during the Ranil Wickramasinghe government,” adding that the Minister asked him to sack these people. “They were all well educated, well qualified people and I was not aware of any improper conduct with those people. When he pressurised me to sack them I resigned,” he said, adding that the President however insisted that he remain.

“I have not sacked anybody in my life without good cause,” he added. He said the real disappointment was when he was the Chairman of the Tourism Cluster. “The private sector owns 99 percent of the tourism sector in the country. For them to invest more, they need to have confidence. This can only be brought about by a well regulated industry and also where they have a say in tourism promotion,” he explained, adding that the tourism act, which was unanimously passed by parliament more than one and a half years ago was formulated to do just this task.

“According to section I of the act, it comes into effect on the date of commencement which the Tourism Minister has to gazette,” he said, explaining that the Tourism Cluster repeatedly request this to be done to no avail. ‘The private sector is disgusted mainly because of this,” he said. About investigations on the BOI by COPE, De Mel said not having a business plan was not a crime. “It was criticised for not having a business plan, but not having one is by no means fraudulent,” he said.

About the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE), he said that there is a huge need for a more broad based corporate structure, so that the public could participate in the equity of successful private companies. “About 50 percent of the CSE market capitalisation is owned by less than 10,000 people. Successful family owned companies should follow the Hemas example and go public,” he said.