National press coverage for Advocata Institute’s Launch and Report on SOEs

Advocata Institute’s launch event as well as the report on “The State of State Enterprises in Sri Lanka”, has been receiving national press coverage,  with several national daily and weekend newspapers carrying articles.

"The Advocata Institute is a new think tank formed by a group of Sri Lankans with an interest in promoting sound, liberal, economic policy. Advocata will publish reports on key areas for reform."   - Daily News
"The institute will be dedicated to economic development through free-markets and will promote sound policy ideas compatible with a free society in Sri Lanka, its officials said."      - Lanka Business Online
"In the last 10 years, six state enterprises - Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, Ceylon Electricity Board, SriLankan Airlines, Mihin Air and Sri Lanka Transport Board - lost Rs605 billion, a report compiled by Advocata Institute, a think tank focusing on economic freedom, showed" - Economy Next
"'So yes I would use the P (Privatization) without feeling embarresd about it' Prof. Razeen Sally said at the launching ceremony of the free market think tank "The Advocata Institute" last Thursday evening." - Ceylon Today
"Advocata, an independent policy think tank based in Colombo, is urging the government and the politicians to engage in an open discussion that at least keeps privatisation in the mix of policy options." - Sunday Times
"The opinion polls jointly conducted by the Business Times and the Research Consultancy Bureau under the BT-RCB tag came into focus at the launch of Advocata, an independent policy think tank, in Colombo on Thursday." - Sunday Times
"Over the next six months, the debt-ridden national carrier SriLankan Airlines is scheduled to go through a major restructuring process that will, hopefully, pave the way to implement a sustainable business model." - Sunday Observer
"The findings of a new Colombo-based think tank show that the absence of crucial financial details of most of the state-owned enterprises (SoEs) in the public domain is a major obstacle holding them accountable to the people, whose funds are invested in them." - Daily Mirror
"Further the Advocata Institute highlighted that although there are 245 State Owned Enterprises in the country, the General Treasury has summarized the financial information of only 55 Enterprises that are strategically important." - Daily News
"As Sri Lanka plans to draw inspiration from the Singapore-styled Temasek Holdings in managing the continuously loss-making state-owned-enterprises (SOE), the island nation should look to place only selected SOEs in the event such a state-owned investment company is set up and not all of them, a top Economist has advocated." - The Nation
"'The institute will be dedicated to economic development through free-markets and will promote sound policy ideas compatible with a free society in Sri Lanka,' Wickramaratne said at the launch of Advocata Institute, a new independent policy think tank based in Colombo, and its report on SOEs." - The Island 
"It is worth taking a look at exactly how our SOEs have been performing over the years. The Advocata Institute., a recently established independent policy think tank, was kind enough to share with us its latest findings in this regard." - Roar.lk

Opinion - Sri Lankan Airlines, sour or to sour?

J. Lorenz writes on Lanka Business Online, about Sri Lankan Airlines:

"Although the government inherited a profitable business in 2008 they successfully managed to run it into the ground due to mismanagement and corruption. The two explanations available are the Jensen and Meckling (1976) theory of ‘principal-agent problem’ and the free-rider problem, both of which concern self-seeking individuals, as discussed at the launch of Advocata Institute at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute earlier this month.

Managers of state owned firms are aware that salaries would be paid regardless of performance of the company hence motivation to perform is taken away thereby embodying the free-rider problem. Further, tax-payers would continue to pump money into failing SOEs whereas a private company would pump their own money into the business risking everything, hence increasing the commitment to perform well. The budget funds given to SOEs in 2014 is equivalent to every household paying 24100 rupees to keep SOEs afloat. This is while around 40% of Sri Lanka’s households earn less than 24000 rupees a month"

Read the entire article on LBO

Advocata Institute Launched in Colombo

Advocata Institute was launched yesterday with the release of our inaugural report titled “The State of State Enterprises”.  The event was held at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute Auditorium in Colombo and was attended by high ranking public officials, deputy ministers, academics and invitees. Deputy Minister Wickramaratne was presented with the inaugural copy of the report.
 

The event was keynoted  by Prof. Rohan Samarajiva, an advisor to Advocata and included speeches by Advocata COO Dhananath Fernando and Prof Razeen Sally.  Prof Samarajiva offered potential ideas for the state enterprise reform and spoke about his experience as a regulator during what was hailed as the successful part-privatisation of Sri Lanka Telecom.

Prof Razeen Sally speaking about the importance of a think tank working on issues related to economic freedom said, that much needed to be done in Sri Lanka to stem the tide of reversing liberalisation that the country has experienced in recent years.

The event also  featured a panel discussion that included the chief guest of the evening Deputy Minister of Public Enterprise Development, Eran Wickramaratne,  Advocata fellow Ravi Ratnasabapathy, as well as Prof Rohan Samarajiva and Prof Razeen Sally.   

The panel discussed reform ideas, including the holding company model after successes in the Singapore Temasek holdings. Several commentators in the panel discussed however the need for privatisation to be brought back into the public conscious as an ultimate solution.  Deputy Minister insisted that the government is looking at reforms on an industry-by-industry and case-by-case basis.

Dhananath fernando, the chief operating officer of Advocata Institute said that Advocata hopes to be an independent voice advocating liberal economic ideas based on sound research.


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