Sri Lanka Ports Authority records Rs 11 bn profit

Sri Lanka Ports Authority has earned a profit of Rs 11 billion in 2016 showing an 83 percent increase in relation to the previous year.

Minister of Ports and Shipping Arjuna Ranathunga declared these financial records officially while addressing a media conference held in the auditorium of the Ministry of Ports and Shipping recently.

Sri Lanka Ports Authority had to face many challenges to accomplish these substantial achievements, Minister Arjuna Ranathunga emphasized.

“Sri Lanka Ports Authority had earned an income of Rs 44 billion in the previous year. After the deduction of operational expenditure, expenditure on administration, expenditure on loan interests and other expenditure from the total income Sri Lanka Ports Authority had earned a profit of Rs. 11 billion over the previous year.

Thereby profit has increased by Rs. 5 billion in comparision to 2015. It means Sri Lanka Ports Authority had earned a profit of Rs 6 billion in 2015. Thereby Sri Lanka Ports Authority has increased its income by 83 percent in one years’ time.

“Sri Lanka Ports Authority had to face many challenges to achieve this victories position. “In early 2015 we increased the salary of the employees by 15 percent and we paid a bonus of Rs 9,000 . Overtime payments also increased due to the increment in the salary.

In addition we have enhanced welfare facilities. We had to compete with Singapore, India, Bangladesh and Malaysia over the last period. We paid Rs 7,100 million as the total debt and the interest on the Hambantota Port in 2016. The total amount of debt and the interest paid by the Sri Lanka Ports Authority was Rs. 16,700 million in that year. Even though conditions are difficult, we earned an Rs. 11 billion profit in 2016. Commitment of the employees, successful management has paved the way to these achievements.

Deductions of the unwanted expenditure, reduction in the corruptions are some other leading factors which led to these positive results of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority. As an example operational expenditure of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority was Rs 22.6 billion in 2015. In 2016 we were able to reduce that amount to Rs 20.2 billion showing a reduction of Rs 2.4 billion,” he said.