[Business comment]

Met men caught napping

President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the opening of the Southern Highway said it was time for the private sector too to get involved in the country’s development process.

The private sector is today more responsible and this was evident when they invested Rs 650 million to support the Commonwealth Games bid. In addition they have stood with the government on many such occasions specially when the country’s chips were down and in natural disasters like the tsunami.

The government cannot expect the private sector to fund and maintain the Meteorological Department and the Disaster Warning Centre. This like the Fire Department is a 100 percent responsibility of the government but sadly this is becoming a questionable institution.

When the tsunami struck and wiped away over 20,000 lives and livelihoods of thousands of people along with livestock and business it was found there was no one to monitor the movements in the Department since it was a holiday.

However neither person responsible for this irresponsible act resigned nor any officials was suspended or even an inquiry held.

Similarly when the sudden atmospheric disturbance stuck Galle district last week and sent over 30 fishing boats missing and killed 20 people and over 13,000 families were displaced no serious prior warning was issued by the Meteorological Department.

The government responsibility was to pay compensation for the dead and provide dry rations and the usual social service. If the Government had suspended a few officials at the Meteorological Department for the debacle after the tsunami they would have acted more responsibly last week.

However, Disaster Management Minister Mahinda Amaraweera rightly said that he would look into this matter and people are eagerly waiting to see the outcome of this.

If this is not done even this time around, when the next tidal wave or sudden atmospheric disturbances strike Colombo it may wipe off or even the proposed Shangri-La Hotel that is being built.

This is the era where there is satellite technology available to monitor weather patterns and it’s a crying shame that the Meteorological Department could not issue a serious warning and save the lives of over 40 people and property.

If this issue is taken from a business perspective, new business premises have to be set up for damaged units, vehicles have to be replaced, power sector have to restored and in some instances uncalled for insurance claims too have to be met. They may also have to relaunch fresh CSR projects. And in some instances entrepreneurs may have to pay compensations if their employees were killed or injured. From a tourism perspective, tourists will have second thoughts when visiting beach destinations that do not issue prior warnings of would be natural disasters.

These small negative factors have to be corrected when the country is successfully marching towards being the wonder of Asia.

Shirajiv Sirimane - shirajiv@yahoo.com

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Market recovers

The Colombo bourse recovered sharply on account of the bullish sentiments brought down with the expectation of the positive outcome of the meeting between the President and the brokering community. During the day significant level of intra-day rallies were prominent in retail counters.

Moreover all the sectors in the exchange recorded gains except for oil palm sector.

ASI closed at 6,022.24, up 216.48 points (+3.7%) to while sensitive MPI ended at 5,233.23, up 180.32 (+3.6%). Market RSI was recorded at 39 (Previous day 23).

Market turnover was registered at Rs 1.2 billion.

Notable level of retail activity was witnessed in the market where HVA Foods Plc (Rs 153.9 million) contributed heavily to the daily turnover with aggressive level of trading.

In addition Colombo Land and Development Plc (Rs 94.2 million) and Blue Diamond Nonvoting (Rs 60.0 million) made noteworthy contributions to the turnover.

Meanwhile retail counters such as Colombo Land and Development Plc, East West Properties Plc and PC house Plc attracted heavy investor participation.

Foreign participation stood at 6.4% of the total market activity and at the end of the day foreign investors were the net sellers with a net foreign outflow of Rs 104 million.