Sri Lanka plans to draw up laws to prevent key state-run companies from being privatised, Finance Minister Sarath Amunugama said Friday. Top on the list is loss making government utilities, Ceylon Electricity Board and Ceylon Petroleum Corp.
"The government has identified a list of state institutions which currently come under the Strategic Enterprise Management Agency or SEMA. The anti privatization laws will cover these enterprises," he told journalists during the post cabinet press briefing.
The legal draftsmen's department has been asked to draw up the necessary bill, he said.
SEMA, a wholly government owned entity, was set up by the government to drill in sound financial management, reform and make thirteen key state enterprises commercially viable.
President Chandrika Kumaratunga's UPFA coalition government was elected on a platform of anti-privatisation.
But the government is now reduced to a minority, after its key partner the Marxist JVP left over disagreements on a ts