Sri Lanka United Business Alliance meets PM
Sri Lanka United Business Alliance (SLUBA) met Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe last week and requested his mediation towards solving some of the raging issues in the SME sector.
Executive committee Member of SLUBA, Tania Abeysundara said that they explained to the PM the hardships they face and requested the government to give the sector a moratorium for a minimum period of one year to all sectors for loan and lease repayments.
They also requested and sought PM’s assistance to freeze all interest components for that period and restructured from the due date.
They also requested that there would be no increment of interest on all prevailing loans and facilities. The SLUBA had also pointed out that majority of the lending through the banking industry is given to the SME, thereby by the SME collapsing the entire revenue system of the banking system will collapse and hence these requested moratoria would not have any negative impact on the banking sector.
They also urged the PM to look into the implementation of solar farms to power the a country as an island has the capacity to harness the power of solar energy extremely efficiently and avoid catastrophic energy losses as we are facing today.
Inviting all business people who have dollars, should be given the option of opening up dollar accounts in order to import goods with their own dollars. All citizens who choose to do this, are to be given temporary dollar amnesty for a period of 3 months.
Abeysundara who is the Chairman of Sen Vin Collection Pvt Ltd said that the SME, have always been the economy’s back bone immaterial of who is in power. “We have always supported the prevailing government, as the SME has always developed our businesses utilizing our own funds and properties. We have never depended on the government, but only on policies made by the government.”
“We urge the government to give priority to the SME sector for we have 4.5 million employees calculatedly, dependent on us. If the SME falls, the country’s economy and banking sector will collapse as loan repayments will be defaulted by over 50% of the country’s population.” The Prime Minister said he was keen to support this segment and said that he was appointing one of his advisers, Dinesh Weerakkordy to coordinate with SLUBA and take the proposals forward. (SS)