BOI breaks up!

• Highly respected business and professional leaders and Board of Directors Dr. Harsha Cabral, Sanjaya Kulatunga and Harsha Subasinghe resign
• Professionally highly qualified Chairman Sanjaya Mohottala and Director-General Pasan Wanigasekara follow suit
• Nearly 1,000 unionised BOI employees have ganged up against senior management for ignoring talent within by hiring select staff from outside at high salaries, and costly refurbishment
• Leadership expresses regrets to resistance within for much-needed reforms and transformation of flagship investment promotion agency
• Recent COPE discussion on BOI partly responsible for turmoil

Dr. Harsha Cabral

Sanjaya Kulatunga

Harsha Subasinghe

Sanjaya Mohottala

Pasan Wanigasekara

The country’s flagship investment promotion agency Board of Investment (BOI) is in turmoil following the resignation of three highly respected Board Directors, the Chairman and the Director General, the

Daily FT learns.

The Board members are Dr. Harsha Cabral PC, Sanjaya Kulatunga and Harsha Subasinghe, all personally selected and appointed by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The other appointed BOI Board member is ex-Goldman Sachs and investment banker turned tech entrepreneur Jayamin Pelpola. Following their exit for personal reasons, the highly qualified professionals Chairman Sanjaya Mohottala and Director General Pasan Wanigasekara too had submitted their resignations.

The BOI, in a statement, did not name who resigned but only said: “Prominent members of the Board of Directors of the Board of Investment have stepped down from their positions”.

Daily FT learns the Board of Directors decided to step down following what some described as “unfair” criticism of BOI by the Parliament Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) recently. This was because the three appointed directors are men of integrity and did not want to be linked to accusation of wrongdoing.

The resignation of the Chairman and Director-General however comes amidst mounting opposition and criticism from the unionised BOI employees for hiring qualified and professional talent from outside to fill key positions. 

Unions alleged outsiders were brought in at high salaries ignoring the talent within, but the management maintained that employees were resisting much-needed reforms and transformation. Unions also alleged recent refurbishment of offices was a wasteful expenditure. The unions collectively had also taken signatures of over 850 employees against the higher management.

However, in its statement, the BOI said the Chairman, members of the Board of Directors and Director-General assumed office with the singular intent of supporting the President’s vision to double Sri Lanka’s GDP in this decade.

In line with this, the BOI’s role is transforming the country into a preferred investment destination by creating a compelling investment climate arose through the conceptualisation and execution of strategic and proactive investment promotions.

To achieve this strategic agenda, the Cabinet and the leadership team of the BOI recognised that many transformations were required internally to enable it to compete against over 1,000 international promotion agencies active globally. 

“They also recognised that this task could not be achieved in silos, and that collaborative efforts through a public-private partnership model was essential. This included the infusion of specialist skills through the acquisition of new talent for selected positions and also the obtaining of specialist professional services to attract and create new investment portfolios to stimulate the country’s trajectory towards a knowledge driven economy,” the statement said.

“Unfortunately, the efforts of the leadership to achieve this urgently required transformation, was strongly and continuously resisted by isolated factions both within and outside the organisation, who have put their self-interest over the public. Such factions either failed or refused to comprehend the competitive realities of the international promotion landscape, in which Sri Lanka needs to compete much more effectively, if it is to attract FDI at the scale the country needs,” the statement added.

It said that it was also a matter of regret that the progressive agenda of the leadership was questioned in public fora, implying mismanagement based on events that occurred during 2017 and 2019, a period prior to the time of the current leadership. 

“The many distortions and misconceptions publicised about the BOI as a result of this confusion has affected the reputation of the BOI internationally, as well as the reputations of its key personnel,” the statement said.

Despite these unfortunate developments, it said the leadership of the BOI remain confident about the significant potential their program of reforms can provide to support Sri Lanka’s economic progress in future, if it is continued to its natural culmination. They are hopeful that all stakeholders will collectively work in that manner necessary for the greater good of Sri Lanka and all its citizens.

Separately, the six representatives of six trade unions when contacted by the Daily FT alleged that the Chairman had a different agenda of recruiting a team with high-salaries ignoring the talent within.

They also claimed that the recruitments through a secretive Cabinet paper was also questioned at the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) recently.

“There was no proper strategy to attract tangible FDIs. There was no respect for the experience and talent within the BOI, nor their suggestions considered,” Union representatives claimed.

They also said that despite claims by the Chairman that the interior of the BOI head office is worn out, investors were always taken to BOI’s World Trade Centre office’s 27th floor whilst the bulk of the office activities were carried out on the 24th floor.

Chairman Mohottala took office in December last year after joining the BOI as Director-General in March 2020. Prior to that, Mohottala was the Managing Director and Partner at Boston Consulting Group with experience in Indo-Pacific, the EU and US. 

A Fulbright Scholar, he received his MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, and holds a BSc. in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering (with distinction) from the University of Moratuwa Sri Lanka. He is also a Management Accountant (CIMA – UK) and has a Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM – UK).

Director General Wanigasekara joined the BOI in January this year. Previously, he was a Director of a Moody’s subsidiary and thereafter was a Consultant to several Fortune 500 companies and Asia-based Private Equity Funds on investment analysis, M&A and operations optimisation, while practicing as an Attorney-at-Law. Wanigasekara holds a BSc from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. He is a qualified Chartered Management Accountant, a Chartered Financial Accountant, and a Chartered Marketer.