“At crisis treasury has no capacity to save bleeding SoEs”

When the country is in a severe economic crisis the Treasury doesn’t have the capacity to save the bleeding State Owned Enterprises (SoE) that have incurred losses, said State Minister of Finance Shehan Semasinghe.

Out of the 52 strategically important public institutions, 39 are making profits and 13 are making losses. The loss of the 13 loss-making government institutions is Rs 1,029 billion . The profit of the 39 profit-making institutions is only Rs 218 billion , the State Minister said attending a ceremony held at the Ministry of Finance on Tuesday (04) to mark the signing of Corporate Intention agreements by several state owned enterprises with the Ministry of Finance.

He mentioned that the annual loss of government institutions is more than Rs. 811 billion. The State Minister also pointed out that only Rs. 28 billion has been paid to the treasury by these profit-making institutions.

State Minister Semasinghe states that as a result of the economic crisis, Sri Lanka has to follow the globally accepted economic methods. The State Minister points out that Sri Lanka would never have adopted such economic measures if there was no such experience of a worst economic crisis. He also mentioned that the methods to be adopted by a country to stabilize the economy of a country, should be identified by itself.

He further said that while the government has the advantage of the market monopoly in many related businesses, the institutions are having losses. He emphasized that the treasury is no longer able to protect institutions that incur losses or that have not reached the desired goals, at a time when the country is in a severe economic crisis.

He also pointed out that all parties should understand that the allocation of money from the treasury means the allocation of money collected from the general public in this country for the maintenance