By Garvin Karunaratne

In order to please the IMF that has promised to provide so some $ 3 billion in Aid, we are set to privatize our Assets.

It is important to realize that with the Privatization we have lost our sovereignty, if what is privatized is essential for the survival of our country .

Let us see what happened with the privatization of Srilanka Telecommunication for $ 225 million. 1997. Then 35.2% of SLT was sold to Nippon of Japan. In addition Nippon provided five managerial staff to run SLT and their full cost was borne by SLT. Nippon in 2008 sold its full 35.2% of SLT to Maxis Communications, a telecom provider in Malaysia for $ 297 million. Nippon made a profit of $ 72 million.

The two major shareholders of SLT at 31/12/2019 were the Govt of Sri Lanka holding 49.5% and Global Telecommunication HoldingsNV(GHT)(Maxis Communications in another face) holding 44.95%. The remaining 5.52% are traded on the Colombo Stock Exchange.

Our Government plans to sell the remaining stake in SLT and with that the totality of SLT will go to a foreign authority. It could be to an authority who can act against our interests and our sovereignty. Telecommunication Networks are an essential sovereign asset and is it not sad to realize that we are actually selling an essential part of our sovereignty to a foreigner who could hold our country to ransom.

It is correct to conclude that if we proceed with privatizing what we hold of SLT our country will lose control over out telecommunications.

It may be prudent for our present leaders to open their eyes to what will happen to our Motherland.

Let us see what happened in London , UK with the privatization of its water supply to Thames Water.

Thames Water is UK’s largest water supplier and supplies water and sewage services to Londoners. The Water Supply and Sewage Services Supply to some 18 million citizens was privatized to Thames Water in 1989. At that time it was thought that by privatization a better service can be found.

It did not take long for Thames Water to be whopped up by RWE, a German company in 2001. In 2006 RWE sold Thames Water to Kemble Water Ltd.- an Australian ownership by the Macqualire Group. It was clear that the aims would be the maximization of profit and not service to the Londoners. It is known that the companies paid substantial dividends to shareholders. Meanwhile Thames Water ran into debt- to as much as 14 billion pounds!

As of July 2023 Thames Water lists its shareholders as: OMERS-32%, the Universities Superannuation Scheme-20%, Infinity Investments(a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority)-10%, British Columbia Investment Management Corporation-9%, the China Investment Corporation-9%, Hermes Investment Management-9%, Queensland Investment Corporation-5%, Aquilla GP Inc-5%, Stichting Pensioenfunds Zorg enWelzijn-2%.

The service of good water and sewage services which was expected was never found. Sewage Spills were frequent, there were leaking pipes everywhere, unattended.

CityAM.Com reports (25/7/2023):

The State of the UK Water Industry is a sorry tale indeed. Monopoly positions and feeble regulations have been ruthlessly exploited… The reason our water industry is in a terrible state is because their chief executives were very heavily incentivised to return as much money as possible to the shareholders… and allowed them to achieve this by pumping sewage into rivers and imposing hose pipe bans rather than damage their profits by improving infrastructure, supply and service.”(Report by Chris Hurst)

In December 2015, Thames Water was fined two million pounds by the Oxford Crown Court for Raw sewage pollution into two Oxfordshire streams”

Thames Water has been fined 3.3 million pounds after it discharged millions of litres of undiluted sewage into two rivers…. There was significant and lengthy release of sewage from treatment works near Gatwick Airport in October 2017(www.BBC.co.uk/news/uk-mgland-sussex-66097906).

On 22 nd March 2017 a judge imposed a record fine of 20.3 million pounds on Thames Water after large leaks of untreated sewage, totalling 1.4 bn. litres occurred over a number of years.

The Guardian on 4 th July 2023, reported that Water firms discharge raw sewage 300,000 times last year”.

In short the water in our Kelaniya River which is the supply for the City of Colombo is far safer than the water in the Thames in England. Thames River supplies water for over 18 millions in the UK.

This real story tells us what will happen when we privatize out assets like Sri Lanka Teleconm , our AirLine and many other assets.

The solution is to get our administrators to work them without political interference. We have an Administrative Service that can be relied upon. The IMF when it forced President Jayawardena to follow the Structural Adjustment Programme at the end of 1977, dictated that the private sector is to be the engine of growth and the public sector comprising thousands of well trained administrators were confined to the barracks. They were also brought to work under petty political authorities. They were the administrators who ran the various departments that brought economic development to the country. .Many Programmes that brought development to the country were closed down. The Department for Development of Marketing(Marketing Department) that purchased veg and fruit from producers was closed down. That was the Department that established a Cannery in 1955 and made Sri Lanka self sufficient in all fruit produce jam and juice within three years1955 to 1958, under Minister Hon Philip Gunawardena. Even eight percent of the pineapple canned was exported. Recently it was reported that the Ragala pear producers could not find sales. Before 1977 the Marketing Department would have purchased all of it and made Jam. Many other Departmental Programmes like the Textile programme of the Small Industries Department that made Sri Lanka self sufficient in all its textiles by the early Seventies was also closed down. They were the administrators who made the country self sufficient in paddy, our staple crop, a major achievement. Get these administrators to work without interference and all loss making concerns can be made into assets.