The Government of Sri Lanka signed the Statement of Corporate Intent (SCIs) with ten selected State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) yesterday (10) at the Ministry of Finance.

The Department of Public Enterprises (PED) introduced the concept of SCI in 2017 with a view to enhance the performance of SOEs.

This concept was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers on 7th February 2017 and was initiated by signing SCIs with five Key SOEs; Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC), Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA), Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Limited (AASL)  and National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWS&DB) on 15th March 2017.

Subsequently, followed by the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers, it was planned to sign SCIs with another 10 selected SOEs, Sri Lanka State Plantation Corporation, Urban Development Authority, Lanka Sathosa (Pvt) Ltd, Central Engineering Consultancy Bureau, State Timber Corporation, Kurunegala Plantation (Pvt) Ltd, State Pharmaceuticals Corporation, Milco (Pvt) Ltd, National Livestock Development Board and Geological Survey and Mines Bureau.

SCI is a tripartite Agreement, signed among the Secretary to the Ministry of Finance (MOF), Secretary of   relevant line Ministry and the Chairman of the respective SOE on behalf of the Board of Directors with the mission of creating a platform for SOEs to operate in a commercially viable manner in order to achieve macroeconomic objectives of the country.

SCI possesses following objectives; to operate SOEs in a budgetary independent and commercially viable manner, to improve Corporate Governance Practices, to strengthen the Financial Management, to strengthen the Human resource management, to change the operational culture and reengineering the business process, to improve the transparency and accountability in operations, to ensure efficient and effective business operations and to generate reasonable Return on Investment.

Moreover, SCI contains key performance indicators linked to Corporate Plan, Action Plan and Annual Budget of the SOEs spreaded over three years’ time horizon.

In addition, the impact of all noncommercial operations of the SOEs are also taken into account and included in the SCI.