The First Lady’s relative to sell Milco

Tuesday, 18 September 2012

A plan is underway to gradually push the Milco Company towards privatization pointing out the inefficient administration and lack of facilities, company sources said.

Sources said the new Managing Director of Milco, who is a close relative of the First Lady, Sunil Wickremesinghe is making the relevant plans to privatize the company.

The company purchases milk from the dairy farmers and destroys most of them. Over 400,000 liters have been destroyed so far. The total quantity of milk collected from local dairy farmers stand at 600,000 liters and the Milco Company uses only less than 200,000 liters.

The company has informed its regional milk collectors to collect all the milk brought to them by dairy farmers. The current certified price of a liter of milk is Rs. 40. A large amount of money has been allocated by the Treasury to purchase milk and the throwing away of milk has resulted in the waste of public monies.

A trade union leader at the company has said the new Managing Director is planning the handing over of Milco to a private company by showing its inefficiency and the lack of required machinery.

The sacking and transfer of employees who question this process is the first step towards the Managing Director’s path towards privatization. It is learnt that while four employees who had questioned these moves have been sacked one employee had been transferred to Anuradhapura.