(Lanka-e-News -05.Oct.2013, 11.30PM) The President, the Treasury Secretary, the Central Bank Governor, the present Peoples’ Bank Chairperson, Gamini Senarath and the former Ceylon Bank Employees Union (CBEU)’s President, Shaa [the present Chairperson of Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka (MBSL) ] - have managed to successfully split the CBEU. Now the Union’s Peoples’ Bank (PB) branch and National Savings Bank (NSB) branch are one group and the other group is led my it’s Bank of Ceylon branch. The former is trying to legally oust the latter from the parent union’s leadership and right now, this matter is before the courts. They did this with a view to paving the way for scuttling the Collective Bargaining Process that is well-entrenched in the country’s banking industry and also to achieve the MR regime’s grand plan: privatization of state-owned banks.
Incidentally, the so-called Collective Agreement that is now in place was signed by the Peoples’ Bank/NSB faction on the part of the CBEU, while Gamini Senarath signed it on behalf of the employers, thus sidelining the Bank of Ceylon which is the largest CBEU branch, in terms of members.
So, you have to put this new development in to context to get a clear picture. The context is the regime’s grand strategy of Chinafication of state banks: selling them off to China. The regime has already encroached on the private banks – the HNB, Commercial Bank & Sampath Bank etc, using the Employees’ Provident Fund and Employees’ Trust Fund.
Meanwhile, the Americans have strategically purchased the lion’s share of bonds issued by both the state and private banks. But it’s still not known exactly who bought the recently issued $-designated NSB bonds to the tune of US$ 750 Million. Maybe, black money of the ruling family too has found its way into NSB, through a bogus foreign-registered company.
The latest development is that they are going to oust the current General Manager of NSB - Hennayake Bandara - by not granting him his last service extension and bring in a crony of the ruling family in his place. It’s widely speculated that again Gamini Senarath, PB Jayasundara, Ajith Nivard Cabraal, the MBSL Chairperson, Shaa and the NSB branch of the CBEU are there in the equation. In this melee, NSB’s Astrologer Working Director, Sumanadasa Abeygunawardea, is trying to fish in troubled waters, as it were, by trying to oust his personal enemy - the NSB Chairperson Ms. W A Nalani - who is said to be a university batch mate of P B Jayasundara. Incidentally, this Nalani too has joined this clique to oust the NSB GM.
While these shenanigans are going on at NSB’s top/Corporate Management levels to oust its current GM Hennayake Bandara, that bank is slowly crashing. With all state banks slowly but surely collapsing in the face of pressures exerted by the twin factors of ever widening fiscal deficit and the negative balance of payments position, these banks are expected to keep the state financially afloat. So, the MR regime has no other alternative but to raise taxes and borrow US Dollars from external sources to keep up the appearance of soundness of the country’s financial in the short term, until the next presidential election.
Coming back to NSB, well, all 7 members of the bank’s Director Board were summoned to the treasury for an emergency meeting by P B Jayasundara for an emergency meeting, yesterday (04) afternoon, and at this meeting they had decided, among other things, to make individual Deputy General Managers including the Additional General Manager to report to the Board of Directors about the measures they have so far taken to rescue the bank from slow collapse, instead of trying to make the GM/CEO the fall-guy.
So now the GM/CEO will stay on till December 2014, when he reaches 60 -the mandatory retirement age. Trouble is brewing in both the Peoples’ Bank and Bank of Ceylon as well and so, the regime is hell bent on breaking the united collective strength of the bank employees, in order to pave the way for letting in private capital in the form of equity through the stock exchange or private placements.
So, you have to put this new development in to context to get a clear picture. The context is the regime’s grand strategy of Chinafication of state banks: selling them off to China. The regime has already encroached on the private banks – the HNB, Commercial Bank & Sampath Bank etc, using the Employees’ Provident Fund and Employees’ Trust Fund.
Meanwhile, the Americans have strategically purchased the lion’s share of bonds issued by both the state and private banks. But it’s still not known exactly who bought the recently issued $-designated NSB bonds to the tune of US$ 750 Million. Maybe, black money of the ruling family too has found its way into NSB, through a bogus foreign-registered company.
The latest development is that they are going to oust the current General Manager of NSB - Hennayake Bandara - by not granting him his last service extension and bring in a crony of the ruling family in his place. It’s widely speculated that again Gamini Senarath, PB Jayasundara, Ajith Nivard Cabraal, the MBSL Chairperson, Shaa and the NSB branch of the CBEU are there in the equation. In this melee, NSB’s Astrologer Working Director, Sumanadasa Abeygunawardea, is trying to fish in troubled waters, as it were, by trying to oust his personal enemy - the NSB Chairperson Ms. W A Nalani - who is said to be a university batch mate of P B Jayasundara. Incidentally, this Nalani too has joined this clique to oust the NSB GM.
While these shenanigans are going on at NSB’s top/Corporate Management levels to oust its current GM Hennayake Bandara, that bank is slowly crashing. With all state banks slowly but surely collapsing in the face of pressures exerted by the twin factors of ever widening fiscal deficit and the negative balance of payments position, these banks are expected to keep the state financially afloat. So, the MR regime has no other alternative but to raise taxes and borrow US Dollars from external sources to keep up the appearance of soundness of the country’s financial in the short term, until the next presidential election.
Coming back to NSB, well, all 7 members of the bank’s Director Board were summoned to the treasury for an emergency meeting by P B Jayasundara for an emergency meeting, yesterday (04) afternoon, and at this meeting they had decided, among other things, to make individual Deputy General Managers including the Additional General Manager to report to the Board of Directors about the measures they have so far taken to rescue the bank from slow collapse, instead of trying to make the GM/CEO the fall-guy.
So now the GM/CEO will stay on till December 2014, when he reaches 60 -the mandatory retirement age. Trouble is brewing in both the Peoples’ Bank and Bank of Ceylon as well and so, the regime is hell bent on breaking the united collective strength of the bank employees, in order to pave the way for letting in private capital in the form of equity through the stock exchange or private placements.
