The Government should privatise national carrier SriLankan Airlines and save millions of rupees that is being daily wasted to keep the airline, said founding Chair of LIRNEasia, Prof. Rohan Samarajiwa at the Advocata Institute organized building political consensus for economic reforms event at BMICH on Wednesday.
He said that if the Indian government can privatise their national carrier Air India, the Sri Lanka government too could do it. He however said that like what the Indian government did the Sri Lankan government too would have to shoulder their burden of settling all the debt owed by the airline when it was privatised. “However even after doing this the Sri Lanka government would be able to save millions of rupees that is allocated to ‘up keep’ the airline.
JVP MP Vijitha Herath however said that State assets should be kept within the government and that it was mismanagement and corruption that caused the downfall of the airline. “If not, how did SriLankan make profits when Emirates was running it?” he asked.
SJB MP, Dr. Harsha de Silva said that there was also a lot of corruption involved with the aircraft purchases and knowledgeable people were not appointed to manage the airline causing its downfall.
Add new comment