Beware, the investors may get “Sakvithified” or “Golden Keyed”

Tuesday, 29 March 2011 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

At last Thursday’s evening presentation at the Centre for Banking Studies on “Taming the Beast in the forest – Experiences from the Finance Companies” by Nelumani Daulagala, Director - Department of Supervision of Non-Bank Financial Institutions, Central Bank of Sri Lanka, when I posed the question to the learned members of the “Discussion Panel” as to whether the Companies inviting investments for tree plantation are registered and monitored by the CBSL, P. Samarasiri (Assistant Governor – Central Bank of Sri Lanka) in his response said that these are not registered with the Central Bank and that these companies are only governed by the Companies Act.

I am of the opinion that the public should be specifically informed that these companies are not registered with the CBSL and therefore, these are very high risk investments. The better option is to get these under purview of the CBSL so that public money is not swindled. I suggest that Nivard Cabral, Governor of CBSL promulgates new legislation or amend existing finance / monetary regulations to be able to monitor these organisations before the investors get “sakvtihified”! Over to the Governor to take suitable remedial action to safeguard the investment of the gullible public.

Mohamed Zahran

Colombo 3