{"id":48733,"date":"2015-10-15T22:29:51","date_gmt":"2015-10-16T04:29:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=48733"},"modified":"2015-10-15T15:25:45","modified_gmt":"2015-10-15T22:25:45","slug":"point-of-view-open-letter-to-minister-arjuna-ranatunga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/10\/15\/point-of-view-open-letter-to-minister-arjuna-ranatunga\/","title":{"rendered":"Point of view: Open letter to Minister Arjuna Ranatunga"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jehan Mendis\u00a0Courtesy The Daily News<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Minister<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Ports and Shipping Minister Arjuna Ranatunga has proposed his brother Dhammika as a candidate for the post of Chairman of Sri Lanka Ports Authority. Answering a question by The Nation newspaper, Mr. Ranatunga has defended himself saying, “A final decision (on the appointment) will be made by a committee which includes the President. However, if he (Dammika) has the necessary qualifications, then why not?”<\/p>\n

What on earth is Arjuna Ranatunga thinking? This is not good governance. This is clearly nepotism, which is something which Mr. Ranatunga said he stood against when he asked us to reject Rajapaksa Brothers Private Limited and asked for our vote. He asked for our vote while standing on the platform of good governance. And now, although Mr. Ranatunga says his brother is qualified, he has not said what these qualifications are. Neither has he demonstrated that his brother is better qualified than other candidates. Sri Lanka has a large shipping industry with experienced people who have an understanding of the problems and the solutions that would be practical.<\/p>\n

Has the Minister successfully encouraged the most qualified and experienced people to apply for the job? This is the Minister’s responsibility. If he says that no one better could be found, then it is the Minister that is not doing his job properly!<\/p>\n

What is the Minister’s brother’s previous experience in the shipping industry? Does he have any special qualifications and experience, or at least a proven track record of effective management in a related area that would justify his appointment?<\/p>\n

Since it is fashionable these days in political circles to keep comparing us to Singapore, let us compare Dhammika Ranatunga’s qualifications with those his Singaporean counterpart – Mr Lucien Wong, the head of the Maritime and Ports Authority of Singapore.<\/p>\n

Easily accessible online, here are some of Mr. Wong’s qualifications. (You may skip to the next paragraph if you get bored reading the long list):<\/p>\n

“Lucien is the Chairman and Senior Partner of Allen & Gledhill LLP. He graduated from the University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) degree and was admitted to the Singapore Bar in 1979. Lucien has more than 30 years’ experience in legal practice and he specialises in banking, corporate and financial services work. Lucien is the Chairman of the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees for the Singapore Business Federation and sits on the Board of Directors of Temasek Holdings (Private) Limited, Hap Seng Plantations Holdings Berhad, Singapore Airlines Ltd and Singapore Press Holdings Limited.<\/p>\n

Over the years, Lucien has sat on several law review committees in Singapore, which reviewed amendments to Singapore company and securities law. He is regularly cited as a leading lawyer in banking, finance, mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance in publications including Chambers Global, Chambers Asia-Pacific, The Legal 500 Asia Pacific, IFLR1000 and Asia law Leading Lawyers. He was conferred a Special Award for his outstanding contribution to the legal profession at the Chambers Global Awards in London in 2007, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the first Chambers Asia Awards 2010 in Singapore.”<\/p>\n

By contrast, google Dhammika Ranatunga and his main qualification appears to be two Tests and 4 ODIs for Sri Lanka in 1989! Have the Ranatunga brothers discovered some sort of secret weapon? Does cricketing skill give you an advantage in the field of shipping and ports? Is Dhammika Ranatunga going to whip the Sri Lanka Ports Authority into shape with his rusty right-arm off-break? Or maybe he can get a few heads to roll with his right-arm batting? But perhaps this all a misunderstanding based on a typo?<\/p>\n

Do the Ranatungas think that they are trying to fill a vacancy in the Sri Lanka Sports Authority instead of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority? If it is not any of these, please tell us, Mr. Ranatunga, what are your brother’s qualifications? This government has yet to prove to voters that they can deliver sustainable economic benefits to the people.<\/p>\n

How long this government will last depends mostly on economics. This government says that encouraging investment, both foreign and domestic, is important to their economic plans. However, this blatant nepotism within important public institutions – and make no mistake, this is the worst type of human resource mismanagement – gives the impression that the economic framework of the country within which a business has to operate is not meritocratic and is broken. This puts investors off. Why on earth would you want to risk investing your money in a place that might not treat your business fairly? In this kind of system, the moment your business conflicts with the interests or whim of some politician, which one do you think is going to come out on top? It sends a warning signal to the business community and the world at large. So, this is not a small problem, Mr. Ranatunga. This is a pretty big problem.<\/p>\n

The world is watching. The business community is watching.<\/p>\n

The good governance activists are watching. And, perhaps far more importantly for you, the voters are watching. Do you think that you can so blatantly take those who voted for you – based on what you said about good governance – for a ride? You may have changed your mind about wanting good governance, but the voters have not.<\/p>\n

It would be good to keep that in mind. It was the voters that voted for good governance who brought you into power.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

– See more at: http:\/\/www.dailynews.lk\/?q=features\/open-letter-minister-arjuna-ranatunga#sthash.a45ASpeO.dpuf<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jehan Mendis\u00a0Courtesy The Daily News Ports and Shipping Minister Arjuna Ranatunga has proposed his brother Dhammika as a candidate for the post of Chairman of Sri Lanka Ports Authority. Answering a question by The Nation newspaper, Mr. Ranatunga has defended himself saying, “A final decision (on the appointment) will be made by a committee which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48733\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}