• Plans to restructure Milco, NLDB ; Min. Amaraweera
• Milco hasn’t been audited before: Agri. Ministry

State owned enterprise, Milco Private Limited, is to be summoned before the Committee on Public Accounts (COPA) and the Committee on Public Enterprise (COPE), it is learnt.

This, amidst the Ministry of Agriculture calming that the SOE has not been audited before, and plans being drawn to restructure Milco and National Livestock Development Board (NLDB).

Agriculture Minister Mahinda Amaraweera late last week had a discussion with the representatives of the trade unions within Milco, during which they alleged corruption and irregularities taking place within the company.

Charging that Milco is not carrying out its due responsibility towards the stakeholder and is incurring losses due to corruption, trade union representatives who attended the meeting requested that a complete audit be conducted on Milco as soon as possible.

In response to the request, Amaraweera said that although many state institutions have been summoned before Parliamentary committees such as COPA and COPE, Milco has never been summoned before such, and that an audit has not been conducted on it thus far.

He further gave an assurance to trade union representatives that necessary action will be taken to summon higher officials of Milco before COPA and COPE, and question them.

The restructuring of Milko and the National Livestock Development Board (NLDB) was also discussed during the meeting, and the trade unions expressed their agreement to the proposed move.

Minister Amaraweera revealed that several rounds of negotiations have been held regarding the matter, and the restructuring will be done in a way that the Government will own 51% of shares, and remaining 49% by the private sector.

"These two companies are capable of producing and distributing the entire amount of milk required by the country, but due to the lack of proper management, only 40% of the total requirement is being produced by them, and the rest is being imported at a huge cost. Therefore, the Government has decided to restructure these two institutions and seek the support of the private sector to increase milk production," the Minister said.