This jigsaw piece fits very well into the bigger picture of all what this government has been doing within the country and with its neighbouring countries(South Asia) and with the wider world such as the Commonwealth and the UN.

What a government does inside its country and outside it reinforce each other.

Most of us missed on:

http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2011/10/30/%E2%80%98big-and-small%E2%80%99-brothers-gang-up-against-people%E2%80%99s-rights/
‘Big And Small’ Brothers Gang Up Against People’s Rights, 30 October 2011
”…. In end April 2010, these same government leaders as Heads of States shot down another proposal to have a regional Human Rights Mechanism, not so much from an intruder, but from a SAARC Head of State. At the 16th Summit of SAARC Heads of States in Bhutan, the Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed addressing the Summit for the first time, said: “…we all face challenges consolidating democracy and strengthening human rights. I believe SAARC should consider establishing a regional human rights mechanism, similar to the one being developed for the ASEAN region. This mechanism could help States promote and protect rights and freedoms in their jurisdiction. It could ensure that international human rights laws are observed and implemented by SAARC members. And such a mechanism could help people in our region develop a common understanding of universal human rights issues and perspectives.”
This proposal on democracy and human rights, was not only ignored by the major players at the SAARC Summit, but was not even taken seriously by any media. …..
This whole region is beset, not with a people’s will to live a democratic life respecting human rights and rule of law, but crooked and warped regimes using procedural democracies to reign over its people. These regimes collaborate across borders and their intelligence agencies work in tandem, on the pretext they work to eradicate ‘insurgency’ or ‘terrorism.’ For all such cross border co-ordination and collaboration in restricting functional democracies and erecting growing military regimes, they raise two huge hoardings that read as “eradication of global terrorism after New York 9/11 and Mumbai 26/11.” While regimes gang up across borders against their own people, the civil society platforms and forums have failed to take up the cue and rally regional people’s power. They have to date failed to recognise the necessity in giving President Nasheed’s suggestion to have a regional mechanism to monitor human rights in the region and they are yet to give heed to the Commonwealth proposal for a monitoring mechanism on human rights, democracy and rule of law. Civil society leaders restricting themselves to local and sectoral issues, have also failed the people in the region. They have allowed sinister regimes to dictate over people’s lives and that’s how we live today. “Tomorrow” is left to be discussed.”

With this ‘general’ at the back of our head, let’s tackle the ‘particular’ Jayaratne exposes – each and every ‘particular’ needs to be tackled asap(as soon as possible) and amap(as much as possible).

Friedrich von Hayek wrote ‘The Road to Serfdom’ in which he “warned of the danger of tyranny that inevitably results from government control of economic decision-making through central planning’

Contrary to Hayek, Karl Polanyi argued that ‘unfettered markets had undermined the social order and that economic breakdown had paved the way for the emergence of dictatorship’

This bill envisages a “appointing a competent authority” under this bill to each underperforming enterprise and underutilised asset.

Is it not imperative fistly to ‘rehabilitate/restructure’ the aforementioned 200 public entities, by removing the managers of same,identifying corruption & taking legal action against those responsible for same,and bring them up to good performance?
All ‘top managers’ are now managing above 200 entities.
Is the government going to ‘import’ competent incorruptible managers from abroad?
Actually, this would be the correct solution.

This “bill” I suspect is to monetarily gain by taking over the socalled “underperforming/underutilised” entities to prop up the national budget.
Are there competent persons to identify these “underperforming enterprises & underutilised assets”, as all/most of them are already “managing” the 200 corrupt public entities?

There is an issue that I would like clarification on:

The schedule carries a list of landholdings owned by various entities. What happens to any debt that has been secured on this land?

Although the bill specifies that the shares of the entity will vest with the GoSL, the schedule appears to indicate that only the land will vest with the GoSL so what happens to the liabilities?

Why is it necessary to include state owned entities (Eg Colombo Commercial, Cashew Corporation) in this list? Again, is it to acquire only the assets, sans any liabilities?

I expected things to improve with this government, given the fact that present central bank governor Nivard Cabraal is fond of telling people that he was a “business restructure consultant” before taking up the governor’s job. No one remembers any company that he has magically turned around, but at least he understands the concepts on restructuring.