By Kalana Sooriyaarachchi –

Dear Dr. De Silva,

I’m writing to you after reading your Facebook post titled “Thank you Dumi. The loss is certainly ours!“

Chairman of the BOI is an onerous position where he is expected to serve the institution positively. He is not a passenger just to be Chairing the board with no substantive contribution.

During the 1st six months of 2017 the envisaged investment of the 29 agreements signed was 2748M US$.

During the 1st six months of 2018 during Dumindra’s regime out of 22 agreements that were signed Proposed investment was US$ 473 M US$. I hope you would recall that Dumindra Ratnayake took over as the Chairman of the BOI in Mid July 2017. This speaks volumes of the performance of your friend Duminda.

Under the BOI Law the Chairman is to be paid a salary as determined by the President. It means that the Chairman is expected to serve the BOi full time. Whether he takes a salary or not is immaterial. It’s a personal matter for him. But he is required to give his fullest attention to the country’s principal institution set up to attract investment.

Dumindra was a busy man of his own accord. He couldn’t spare time for BOI other than for the board meetings. Time permitting He was there occasionally once a week on Wednesday afternoon for two hours. Are you aware that the new Inland Revenue Law and the New Exchange Control Law are not in the schedule B of the BOI law. As a result of this BOI is totally ineffective. What’s the purpose in any investor coming to the BOI and paying annual fees. What has Duminda done to include these laws by an amendment to the BOI Law. Your argument that Dumindra was re-inventing the wheel by, DG run BOI holds no water.

Duminda Ariyasinghe was originally recruited as a Deputy Director General and demoted as a Director. He was very bad in temperament. He suspected all the officers of the BOI who were all highly qualified professionals. Country has lost many an investment due to his wrong attitude. He was hot tempered and temperamentally unsuited. Which school he came from is immaterial.

Latest was the ‘Pathaha’ Graphite processing project with an envisaged investment of 12 M US$. This is the only investment in graphite processing to make Anode Powder. A ton of this processed graphite if sold in the world market is US$ 12,000/-, where as unprocessed raw graphite is exported in large quantities at 600 US$ per ton. We should have grabbed this opportunity. But it was rejected by Dumi & Company.

Both Dumis didn’t understand the role of the BOI. There were many others. Written off Motor vehicle and other metal crushing plant, Computer assembly plant, salmon belly processing plant and many other were rejected due to the incomprehensibility of the business by the DG and the Chairman. Italian High Speed Railway projected that has been much spoken of these days is another.

These are a few of the lost opportunities of the BOI.

When the previous board headed by Upul Jayasuriya rejected the proposal to give 100 acres from Horana zone to Nandana Lokuwithana for a infamous tyre Factory at 11,000/- US $ and further do the Land development at the cost of the BOI, Dumi & Company gave 150 acres at 1 US$ service charge per acre per year whereas any other enterprise in the zone has to pay US$ 3500 per acre per year.

When the previous board (prior to Dumindra) sought to terminate the agreement with Lokuwithana of the Steel Corportaion for defrauding the taxes up to Rs 1,500 M on faked import substitution Dumi & Company acted on the dictates of your Colleague Minister Malik Sam and MANGALA Yapa and allowed them to continue. Lokuwithana ended buying Malik’s Penguin building at Welikada for a fancy price. Is this the good governance they installed?

When Asiri Surgical defaulted the Agreement in depriving the poor by not giving 10 beds free as per the BOI agreement, previous board of Upul Jayasuriya terminated the agreement. This was a blatant act by the enterprise robbing the poor. Dumi & Company restored the agreement and allowed them to exploit the needy.

Dear Minister, pl get your facts straight before you comment in public as Friendship or your camaraderie and loyalty to ‘Disce Out discede’ has no role to play.

I respect you as an intellect and an academic with teaching experience at the University.

Your total lack of management skill cannot be overcome with a few years of political acumen in which you are a novice. Please hold the horses and hold them tight.