The present government has taken measures to restore the loss-making Ceylon Fisheries Corporation to profit making level, the Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development, Mahinda Amaraweera said. Participating in the opening ceremony of a new fish sales outlet of CFC at Gampaha, the Minister said the CFC has recently incurred financial losses mainly due to the poor management and having to meet a huge payroll for a significant number of excess employees. Malpractices and corruption has also led CFC to undergo such financial losses and Treasury funds have been utilized to pay the salaries of the excess employees and to settle the arrears payable to fish suppliers to CFC, the Minister pointed out. However, under the new management CFC was able to pay the August salary bill from its own income. Further, 270 excess employees have agreed on volunteer retirement under the VRS implemented by CFC. “Many had assumed that the government would either close down or privatize CFC. As a government, we act to restore loss making institutions to profit making levels under a better management instead of closing down or privatizing them,” the Minister said. “CFC is an institute with a long history and closing down of such an institute would not be a simple task since it could result in monopoly of the fish trade and unaffordable price of fish. Only CFC sells fish at affordable prices. Therefore, we have planned to establish two seafood outlets in Kandy and Colombo under CFC. Not only has the government, the staff of CFC also has to shoulder the responsibility of developing it to profit making levels.” said Minister.
2000, 2016 by LankaPage.com (LLC) :