The World Bank (WB) says that if Sri Lanka wants to be recognized as a middle income country then service delivery of key facilities must improve across the country. "If Sri Lanka wants to be known as a middle income country, service delivery must improve and urban development should be across the country, not only in Colombo. This is where the private sector can come in, in developing secondary cities and creating jobs," Diarietou Gaye, WB's Country Director for Sri Lanka and the Maldives, told the Business Times in an interview last week.
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| Diarietou Gaye |
The interview follows WB approval in Washington of the Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) for Sri Lanka which involves some US$500 million a year in interest-levied loans from 2013, up from $200 million now. She said the skills development initiative under the programme will see the involvement of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), another WB unit, which will separately plough in US$150 million a year in Sri Lankan projects essentially involving the private sector and its development.
The WB Country Director said that in the area of governance and accountability, they would be helping the government in a public expenditure review to ascertain whether public expenditure matches the status of a middle income country, and if not, how it could be achieved. "We are also working with the government on a public expenditure and financial assessment, a standard bank document which the WB does in every country . looking at financial management, control systems and working with the Auditor General to make sure that international systems are in place," she said, adding that another area is looking at loss-making public enterprises and together helping to improve management of these enterprises.
With work expanding in the post-war era, the WB's Colombo office has grown to 65 with probably 100 staff in place in the next few years from 30 staff in the pre-war period. It is also looking for new office space as the needs grow. Ms Gaye said an investment climate assessment undertaken by the Bank revealed that governance, often talked about as an issue, is not the topmost priority in the private sector. She said the study showed that the main problems faced by investors are access to finance, land issues for services particularly tourism, and electricity cost and its availability.
"To be fair, the conversation with the government today is very open. We can talk on any topic. We may disagree which is okay and healthy, but the conversation still continues," she noted, pointing out however that the government needs to come up with a good communication strategy to explain to people what is happening. "It (government) is lacking in this area," she said. |
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