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10 CERTIFIED MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTANT

The most singular achievement that The recruitment and promotion higher education and skills level of
was made during my stint as Chairman system at SLPA, was quite pathetic, our people are high, which is in par
was getting back the Eastern Container we regularised it entirely. There were with many highly developed countries.
Terminal (ECT) back to the SLPA even people in the Port working for 30 years So, our workforce should be more
though we had signed agreements to in the same position. A new career involved in high quality manufacturing.
hand it over to India. And we are in the development system was introduced The garment industry engages less
process of developing the ECT as a and implemented by replacing the skilled and low-cost labour. Of course,
fully automated terminal, a first in Sri haphazard system of recruitments and they should be there when you don’t
Lanka, and for that matter first time in promotions. Now these are streamlined, have anything else. But we must
the region as well. and everybody has to follow through expand other areas of high-quality
the advisory and promotion boards. manufacturing.
We also have huge potential to operate We were able to achieve these in a
a logistics centre. Two logistics centres considerably shorter period of time. With the help of the government and the
are in the pipeline. SLPA also intends I could never have introduced such Minister, we are exploiting many new
to replace the manual and primitive sweeping methods had it not been for areas such as ceramic and its related
storage system with an automated my military experience. clay industry for which there’s a huge
achieved 100% digitalisation of all its “ known to possess one of the best clays
global market. Even locally, the market
storage system for the first time in the
is vast if we properly exploit it. We are
region.
in the world and in plentiful quantities.
All our payments and financial
The salt-related industries are also not
transactions were handled manually,
been properly tapped. We are importing
All the ministries
but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we
products like Caustic Soda which is
were able to expedite the introduction
should be given the
of digitalisation. In August 2020, SLAP
to introduce such industries within
the next two years. We have the best
payments. task of developing salt-based. Arrangements are finalised
their own policy
graphite in the world but export it in
which should then its raw form instead of as value-added
In a single day, the human and vehicular products. We have already called for
traffic to and from the Port is huge; be integrated into tenders to introduce value-addition to
26,000 people, 3,500 motorcycles, graphite for which many studies are
11,000 light vehicles, and 3,500 prime one central point. underway. Ilmenite is another area
movers (container trucks). All these where we possess the best quality but
movements, which were handled export in raw form. Here also, we have
manually, was digitalised within a Ministry of Industries plans to introduce value addition. Other
matter of six to seven months by the such industries include the shoe and
end of 2020. In addition, around 1,700 At the Ministry of Industries too we have biscuit industries.
containers leave the Port daily. This been doing a tremendous service. But
operation too was handled manually my personal understanding is that, as The present government has stopped
but SLPA was able to digitalise it a country, we must do better because importing many products that could
completely and enable the operators there’s enough room to improve. be manufactured in Sri Lanka.
to work from home with only the driver The Ministry of Industries handles all However, there’s an inherent problem
arriving in the port. The year 2020 the industries in the country. In the in Sri Lanka; one government invites
was a year where SLPA achieved GDP of a national economy, there are investors to develop these products,
digitalisation in leaps and bounds. three pillars, i.e., the Service Pillar, the but the next government comes and
Manufacturing Pillar, and the Agrarian starts importing them. During the
Introduction of Services Pillar. If you look at our GDP, government of 2005 to 2015, many
investments were brought in, but the
Container Terminal 57% of it comprises the Service Pillar next government which came to power
(before the Covid-19 pandemic); 27%
Management System of it from the Manufacturing Pillar; and in 2015 liberalised the economy and
only 8% from the Agrarian Services re-commenced importing everything.
The Container Terminal Managing Pillar. I think this needs to change since This action had an adverse effect
Systems that was operating at the the Agrarian Services should make on the investors who lost both their
JCT and UCT were Navis™ SPARCS the biggest contribution to the GDP. money and their confidence. And it is
Ver. 3.10 and Navis™ EXPRESS Ver. Around 60% of the working population now quite difficult to get back those
2.9. However, during my tenure, this are involved in the agriculture industry. investors to re-invest.
ten-year-old system was upgraded on Manufacturing is insufficient at 27%,
29th April 2021to N4 (Navis 4). This out of which the major contributor There are many non-traditional exports
was a major milestone in the SLPA’s is the garment industry. That is not a for which we have signed agreements
development to a “Superior Service good indicator for a country like ours with India and Pakistan. We have not
e-Port”. with a high literacy rate. The level of properly exploited the huge Indian

www.cma-srilanka.org | Volume 06 - No. 2 - September 2021