Nigerian Navy Commissions Health Centre, Other Projects In Gombe

The Nigerian Navy has commissioned a newly constructed and fully furnished five-bedroom lodge for members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) serving in Kwami Local Government Area of Gombe State.

The projects, executed under the Nigerian Navy’s Civil-Military Quick Intervention Projects in honour of Rear Admiral Sulaiman Haruna Abdullahi, also include an upgraded dispensary at Malam Sidi, headquarters of the LGA.

Speaking at the commissioning, the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Idi Abbas, said the intervention was designed to address critical community needs and improve access to essential services.

Represented by the Director of Project Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation, Rear Admiral Mohammad Yakubu Dahiru, he explained that the Civil-Military Quick Intervention initiative was designed to strengthen bonds and foster unity between the Nigerian Navy, government and the public for national development.

He commended Rear Admiral Abdullahi for identifying the needs of the community and using funds provided under the Chief of Naval Staff’s Special Quick Impact Projects to execute the projects.

Rear Admiral Dahiru urged residents to take ownership of the facilities, protect them from vandalism and ensure their proper maintenance for the benefit of future generations.

Commissioning the projects, the Deputy Governor, Dr Manassah Daniel Jatau, commended the facilitator for his dedication to service in the Nigerian Navy and for attracting the intervention to his community.

According to him, the interventions complement the administration’s efforts to improve security and living conditions across the state.

NASENI Wins Best Digital Transformation Agency Award

The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) has won the 2025/2026 Best Federal MDAs Digital Transformation Award at the 8th Nigeria E-Government Summit and Awards.

NASENI emerged as the winner with 57.4 per cent of the votes cast in its category, ahead of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), which polled 25.6 per cent, and the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), which received 16.9 per cent.

The award was presented on September 10, 2026, at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos.

The agency’s Director of Information, New Media and Protocol, Segun Ayeoyenikan, who represented its Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Khalil Suleiman Halilu, at the award dinner, attributed the recognition to the ongoing digitalisation of NASENI’s administrative and operational systems.

Ayeoyenikan said the agency had adopted digital processes to improve efficiency and productivity, adding that its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system was part of the transformation.

‘NASENI is at the forefront of promoting the culture that all governance systems in Nigeria become digitised,’ he said.

‘At NASENI, you don’t see papers anymore. The offices and all our tables are cleared of papers. We have digitised not only administration, but all our operations.’

The convener of the summit and awards, Lanre Ajayi, said 33,785 Nigerians voted in the selection of winners, with measures put in place to prevent multiple voting.

The Nigeria E-Government Summit and Awards is an annual platform focused on digital governance and the delivery of government services.

Lirwana is teaching Uganda’s teachers how to teach better

For 30 years, Isaac Lirwana stood in front of blackboards and watched children raise their hands with answers they did not understand. He taught Mathematics the way the system demanded it; formulas to be memorised, problems to be solved by pattern-matching, examinations to be passed by reproduction. And for 30 years, he felt the quiet dissonance of knowing that the children who scored highest were often the ones least equipped to use what they had learnt. So, he started teaching the people who teach them.

Today, Lirwana is one of Uganda’s busiest trainers of teachers, a ‘resource person’ and a specialist in competency-based item writing. His classroom has expanded from one school to dozens. His students are no longer teenagers but the men and women charged with shaping them. Lirwana has walked into staff rooms and training halls carrying a simple message, if you are still teaching children to give correct answers, you are not teaching at all.

The system that made him

For generations, the national philosophy of education was built on a single adage that education is the key to success in life. Parents believed it. Children suffered for it. But what happened inside the classroom often bore little resemblance to the promise. The curriculum asked children to remember and reproduce. Examinations rewarded what could be written on paper. Critical thinking was a luxury the timetable could not afford.

Lirwana was a Mathematics teacher in this system, working in several Kampala schools over three decades. He knew the pressure. A teacher’s success was measured by examination results. A child’s future was determined by how many correct answers they could fit into three hours. Practical application, real-life context, and the question of whether an answer actually mattered beyond the classroom door were distractions from the urgent business of passing. He began writing his way out of the problem.

The books that teachers needed

Frustrated by textbooks that treated Mathematics as an abstraction, Lirwana started writing the Active Mathematics Series, now published by Oxford University Press East Africa. The books were designed to force learners into confrontation with real decisions. A problem was not merely a calculation; it was a scenario. If you have limited resources, how do you allocate them? If you run a small business, how do you price your goods? If you are farming, how do you measure risk?

But books alone do not change classrooms. Teachers had to be persuaded to use them, and more importantly, to rethink how they stood in front of children.

The trainer’s dilemma

When he walks into a training session, Lirwana is met by professionals who have succeeded under the old rules. Many have been teaching for years. Some are excellent at producing examination results. All of them are now expected to implement the Competency-Based Curriculum, a national shift that moves assessment away from memorisation and toward critical thinking, problem-solving, and practical application. They, however, were themselves educated by memorisation. Lirwana’s job is to close that distance.

‘A child can enter school without capital, a business, land, equipment or even a clear picture of what the future holds,’ he tells them. ‘Yet that same child can leave school with something powerful; the ability to think, analyse situations, make decisions and turn limited resources into possibilities.’

The challenge is that this requires teachers to surrender the script. Under the old model, the teacher knew the answer and the learner was expected to receive it. Under Lirwana’s model, the teacher becomes a facilitator of inquiry. The authority shifts from the front of the room to the problem itself. The teacher must ask: What do we know? What do we need to find out? What choices do we have? What are the consequences? And which decision makes the most sense?

For teachers trained to be the smartest person in the room, this can feel like a demotion. Lirwana has to reframe it as an elevation. The teacher is no longer a reference book but a strategist, helping learners navigate complexity that has no single correct answer.

The practical revolution

What saves Lirwana’s training from abstract theory is his insistence on practical illustration. He does not lecture teachers about critical thinking. He puts them in situations where they must think critically, often using the very Mathematics they thought they already knew. He challenges them to see the consequence of a mathematical decision appearing somewhere else entirely; in a reduced loss, a better-managed project, a more efficient use of resources, an opportunity created where none appeared to exist.

‘The rich resource in Mathematics is in looking at its consequences appearing somewhere else,’ he says.

A farmer calculating yield is doing Mathematics. A trader deciding whether to buy stock is doing Mathematics. A mother managing household expenditure is doing Mathematics. The classroom should be where they learn to do it better, not where they are separated from it. This is the core of his competency-based approach. A learner may know something. But if they cannot apply that knowledge to a real-life situation, they are not fully prepared for life. The examination is a checkpoint. The life is the destination.

The scale of one man’s reach

Lirwana’s influence is difficult to measure in the way education officials prefer. He does not have a district office. He does not sit on examination boards, but the list of where that authority has been exercised reads like a map of Uganda’s educational elite and its aspiring middle tier. King’s College Budo, one of the country’s oldest and most prestigious schools. Mengo Senior School, rooted in the capital’s history. Mityana Senior School, serving a rural-urban transition zone. Godmark High School in Mukono, Crane High School, Kololo Senior Secondary School. He has moved between institutions that select the brightest and institutions that serve whoever arrives at the gate, and he has delivered the same message to both; the subject you teach is less important than the thinking you enable.

As a specialist, he also shapes the very instruments by which teachers will be judged. The test questions he helps design ask learners to do. This is not a small distinction. In a system still transitioning from the old examination culture, the person who writes the questions is, in some ways, more powerful than the person who writes the curriculum. Lirwana is therefore operating on two levels at once; he is retraining the teachers who deliver instruction, and he is helping redesign the assessments that validate it. Lirwana does not pretend the Competency-Based Curriculum has solved Uganda’s education crisis. He knows better, having seen too many policies dissolve at the classroom door. Yet he believes change is possible if teachers are equipped to make it; not through new buildings or textbooks, but by shifting from lecturer to facilitator, from answer-giver to question-asker, from examiner of memory to trainer of minds.

Shareholder removed from records: URSB fails to resolve 47-year dispute, sends it to court

When Natural Food Industries was incorporated on March 12, 1979, Neema Sheba Bagalaaliwo was among six people who subscribed to the company.

Each held one share in a business whose initial share capital stood at Shs500,000.

Nearly five decades later, the original incorporation documents still carry her name. But somewhere along the company’s long corporate journey, the shareholder herself disappeared from subsequent records.

There is no single resolution on the company file expressly removing her.

There is no definitive document showing when she ceased being a member. Instead, her name appears to have progressively vanished through a succession of filings spanning years.

How that happened has now developed into an ownership dispute involving share allotments dating back to 1997, transfers made in 2005, disputed corporate records and allegations of forged signatures.

After examining the paper trail, Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) could not authoritatively determine who legitimately owns shares in Natural Food Industries today.

In a September 3 ruling, Assistant Registrar of Companies Daniel Nasasira sent the dispute to the High Court, reasoning that determining the company’s true membership would require adjudicating contested ownership rights that fall outside the Registrar’s powers.

For Bagalaaliwo, the ruling leaves her in an unusual position. Although the paper trail shows she has been an original shareholder of Natural Food Industries since 1979, URSB cannot determine administratively how she later disappeared from its records.

Company documents examined by Nasasira show Bagalaaliwo alongside Mohammad Magid Bagalaaliwo, El-Bam Bashir Bagalaaliwo, Summayah Nakakawa, Faridah Marvel Nabalozi and Adlan Naluyo as the original subscribers, each holding one share.

But in a petition, Bagalaaliwo told URSB that she discovered she had been removed as a shareholder, yet she had never forfeited or transferred her shares and that other people had been added to the company without her knowledge, consent or participation.

However, the other shareholders presented a different account, denying removing Bagalaaliwo and said Natural Food Industries had remained dormant from 2005 until 2024, when URSB’s company data update exercise prompted its revival.

They argued that if Bagalaaliwo had disappeared from the records, it was because of administrative anomalies in the URSB system rather than deliberate action on their part. But determining what actually happened required Nasasira to travel much further back through the company’s records.

Natural Food Industries began in 1979 with share capital of Shs500,000, divided into 500 ordinary shares valued at Shs1,000 each.

But that structure changed dramatically after 17 years. Documents on the company file show that on June 28, 1996, its nominal capital was increased from Shs500,000 to Shs500m, divided into 500 ordinary shares worth Shs1 million each.

Then came a transaction that would become central to the current dispute. A return of allotment executed on March 12, 1997, but filed on January 13, 2005, allocated 495 of the company’s 500 ordinary shares. Muhammad Magid Bagalaaliwo received 273 shares while Sarah Bagalaaliwo received 222.

Another significant change followed in 2005. According to a resolution filed on January 13 that year, Muhammad Magid Bagalaaliwo transferred his 273 shares to Malvia Roshankumar Himatbhai, while Sarah Bagalaaliwo transferred her 222 shares to Dave Gaurang Vijaykumar.

The two incoming shareholders were appointed directors, while Muhammad Magid Bagalaaliwo and Sarah Bagalaaliwo ceased to be shareholders and directors, according to the resolution.

The two transactions are now crucial because Bagalaaliwo disputes the foundations upon which they rested, challenging the 1997 allotment and arguing that the existing shareholders were not first offered the shares through their pre-emption rights as required under the company’s Articles of Association.

She further argued that there was no resolution, deed of surrender or transfer instrument establishing that she had ceased being a shareholder or surrendered those rights.

Undoing the 1997 transaction, however, could potentially affect subsequent transactions.

In its ruling, URSB noted that challenging that allotment indirectly raised questions about the later membership of Himatbhai and Vijaykumar, who acquired shares arising from subsequent transfers.

What appeared initially to be a request to restore one shareholder’s name had, therefore, become a much larger question about the company’s ownership history.

How did Bagalaaliwo disappear from records?

Nasasira’s examination of the company file found no definitive filing or resolution removing Bagalaaliwo as a member.

Instead, company records showed that her disappearance occurred gradually. Following the disputed 1997 allotment, Bagalaaliwo and some other original shareholders were purportedly excluded as members.

But the names of some of those shareholders later appeared again in documents filed from 2005 onwards. Bagalaaliwo did not.

Nasasira concluded that her exclusion resulted from ‘a succession of filings that progressively altered records, culminating in her omission from the register.’

But establishing who was responsible for those filings, and whether they legally changed ownership, proved considerably more difficult.

Forgery claims enter the dispute

Bagalaaliwo told URSB that after discovering the changes, she approached Bashir Mohammed Bagalaaliwo, one of the original subscribers, seeking information about the company’s affairs.

According to her statutory declaration, Bashir told her that his signature and that of another original subscriber, Mohammad Majid Bagalaaliwo, had been forged during the company update process.

The ruling records that the two subsequently lodged a complaint at Jinja Road Police Station, but URSB did not determine that forgery occurred.

Intriguingly, another person whose name appeared in the disputed records also disowned her supposed ownership.

The fifth respondent, Naseeba Bagalaaliwo Nakato, told URSB that she had never attempted to register, re-register or revive Natural Food Industries and had never participated in its business.

She said she had never been a shareholder and that any company record depicting her as one was inaccurate and that any signature attributed to her on company records was a forgery placed there without her knowledge or consent.

Where URSB’s powers end

By this stage, what started as Bagalaaliwo’s attempt to have her shareholder status restored had opened questions stretching across nearly three decades of corporate transactions.

Was the 1997 allotment lawful? Were existing shareholders entitled to exercise pre-emption rights? Were the 2005 transfers valid? Was the resolution authorising them genuinely passed? And were later annual returns, beneficial ownership filings and other documents lawfully prepared and filed?

Nasasira ruled that answering those questions would require more than comparing documents sitting on the Companies Register.

It would require witnesses, documentary evidence and determination of competing legal rights.

Under the Companies (Powers of the Registrar) Regulations, the Registrar can correct or expunge documents where defects are objectively apparent from the record.

But Nasasira found that the Natural Food Industries dispute crossed that boundary.

The questions surrounding the 1997 allotment, the 2005 transfers and the company’s membership required substantive judicial determination.

URSB therefore ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to determine the legality of the contested share transactions, establish the company’s lawful membership or expunge the disputed documents.

That job now belongs to the High Court.

Under the Companies Act, the court can determine whether someone’s name was entered into or omitted from a company’s register without sufficient cause and order the register corrected.

Unlike the Registrar, court can receive oral and documentary evidence, examine disputed transactions, test the credibility of witnesses, and conclusively determine ownership rights.

Nasasira consequently dismissed Bagalaaliwo’s application for want of jurisdiction, with no order as to costs.

But the dismissal does not settle the underlying ownership battle.

Instead, 47 years after Natural Food Industries was incorporated, its original paperwork establishes that Bagalaaliwo was there at the beginning.

What happened to her shareholding afterwards, and what that means for the company’s ownership today, is a question URSB says only court can now answer.

Maersk sees green bunkering opportunity for Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka could leverage its strategic location on a major global shipping route to develop into a future bunkering hub, with A.P. Moller-Maersk Singapore Managing Director Rene Piil Pedersen identifying green and alternative marine fuels as a potential new growth opportunity for Colombo.

Pedersen said the global shipping industry’s decarbonisation drive, increasingly intertwined with energy security, was creating opportunities for strategically located ports to move beyond traditional transshipment.

‘Being a hub creates an opportunity to be more than just a transshipment gateway. It can also become a bunkering hub,’ he said during a panel discussion at the Colombo International Maritime and Logistics Conference 2026, rec

He said the key question for Sri Lanka was whether the country could produce green fuels domestically or source them regionally and make them competitively available to international shipping.

‘Becoming a bunkering hub is a genuine opportunity, and one that could also benefit the local economy by creating jobs and building new skills,’ Pedersen pointed out.

He said Sri Lanka’s proximity to one of the world’s major shipping routes could make it an attractive refuelling location for international shipowners, provided future fuels were available at competitive prices.

‘As a shipowner, we operate around 150 vessels flying the Singapore flag. I’d welcome the opportunity to bunker here,’ Pedersen said, adding that he had discussed the possibility with the Ports Minister.

Acknowledging that developing such an ecosystem would not be simple, he stressed that Sri Lanka had a significant geographic advantage that could be converted into a new maritime business opportunity.

The comments come as Maersk itself expands decarbonisation efforts across its logistics network, including terminals, warehouses and landside transport, with electric trucks being introduced in several markets and new terminals designed around renewable energy and lower-carbon operations.

Beyond the IMF: The jigsaw puzzle of a production-based economy

An International Monetary Fund delegation is currently in Sri Lanka to hold discussions relating to the Seventh Review of the country’s economic reform program supported by the Extended Fund Facility (EFF). The mission, which runs from 10 to 23 September, is led by Evan Papageorgiou, the IMF Mission Chief for Sri Lanka.

Successfully completing this review and continuing the IMF program as planned are important. Nevertheless, it is our considered view that Sri Lanka cannot build a sustainable economy over the long term merely by following the path prescribed by the IMF. Macroeconomic stability is an indispensable foundation, but it cannot be treated as the ultimate objective of national development.

Since the economic crisis of 2022, Sri Lanka has regained a degree of macroeconomic stability. Notable progress has been made in containing inflation, increasing Government revenue, strengthening the primary fiscal balance, rebuilding foreign reserves and restructuring public debt. These achievements should not be underestimated. However, they are not the final measures of the country’s development success. They are merely the foundations upon which the next stage of economic progress must be built.

This article therefore examines why Sri Lanka must move beyond the macroeconomic targets of the IMF program and undertake a broader economic transformation founded on production, exports and national capabilities.

What the IMF program can-and cannot-deliver

The primary purpose of an IMF program is to help a country manage a balance-of-payments crisis and restore macroeconomic stability. Its main areas of focus therefore include narrowing the gap between Government revenue and expenditure, restoring debt sustainability, safeguarding price and financial stability, rebuilding foreign reserves, strengthening public financial management and reducing vulnerabilities to corruption.

On 27 May 2026, the IMF Executive Board completed the combined Fifth and Sixth Reviews of Sri Lanka’s economic reform program. This decision provided the country with access to approximately US$695 million, bringing total disbursements under the arrangement to nearly US$2.4 billion. At the same time, the IMF projected that economic growth could slow to around 3 per cent in 2026 because of adverse conditions, including the conflict in the Middle East and the effects of the cyclone.

The crucial point is that macroeconomic stabilisation and economic transformation are not the same. Stabilisation prevents the economy from collapsing; transformation enables it to move forward.

Determining what goods and services Sri Lanka should produce, identifying the sectors in which it can compete globally, providing domestic entrepreneurs with access to technology and capital, and connecting rural production to international value chains are not the primary functions of an IMF program. These decisions are a national responsibility belonging to the Government of Sri Lanka, the business community, universities, research institutions, professionals and the people.

The IMF’s recommendations should therefore be incorporated into the national economic plan as important components. However, it would be misguided to assume that those recommendations alone should determine the country’s future direction. Sri Lanka’s development strategy should not become an extension of the IMF program. Instead, the IMF program should become one component of a much broader national development strategy designed and owned by Sri Lanka.

The real lesson of the 2022 crisis

Sri Lanka did not collapse economically merely because its debt had become too large. The country also failed, over several decades, to build a sufficiently strong production and export base capable of earning the foreign exchange required to service that debt.

Export revenue did not grow at the pace required, while the country remained heavily dependent on imports for fuel, medicine, food, machinery and industrial inputs. Consequently, the gap between import expenditure and export earnings continued to widen, creating an economic structure increasingly dependent on foreign borrowing to bridge that gap.

Foreign loans may be used to expand consumption, real estate, import-based trade and construction projects that generate inadequate revenue. Such activities may produce the appearance of economic growth for a limited period. However, they do not necessarily generate the foreign exchange required to repay the debt incurred. What happened in 2022 was the sudden exposure of this long-standing structural weakness.

The relief gained through debt restructuring is not permanent. Foreign-currency debt-servicing pressures are expected to increase again from 2028, while principal repayments will rise progressively in the years that follow. In addition, certain payments on Sri Lanka’s macro-linked bonds may vary according to the country’s nominal GDP measured in US dollars and its real economic growth during the 2025-2027 assessment period.

If the economy performs better than projected, the degree of debt relief may decline and the returns received by creditors may increase. This could affect the fiscal space available for education, healthcare, research, infrastructure and industrial expansion.

The temporary breathing space now available should therefore not be used merely to celebrate the return of stability. It must be used to build a foreign-exchange-earning economy capable of meeting its obligations when the next cycle of debt repayments intensifies.

The jigsaw puzzle of a production-based economy

The economic model best suited to Sri Lanka must be founded on production. However, building such an economy involves much more than opening a few factories, granting tax concessions or repeating the slogan, ‘Let us increase exports.’ It must be a carefully designed and integrated national program in which every component is placed correctly-like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle coming together to form a complete picture.

Fiscal discipline is one piece of this puzzle. A stable exchange-rate and interest-rate environment is another. Energy security, transport and logistics networks, technology, research, skilled labour, entrepreneurship, long-term industrial finance, access to export markets, quality standards and policy consistency constitute the other essential pieces. If these components are implemented separately and without coordination, the complete economic picture will never emerge.

The IMF’s recommendations must also be placed correctly within this jigsaw puzzle. A production-based economy cannot be built without fiscal discipline, debt sustainability, effective control of corruption, sound public financial management and price stability. However, assembling only these pieces will not complete the picture. Productive capacity, technological transformation, market access, industrial financing and human capital must be aligned with them.

Sri Lanka should not attempt to produce everything. It should strategically select sectors in which the country possesses a comparative advantage, existing capabilities or access to growing global demand.

These may include value-added agricultural and food products, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment, electronic components, rubber-based products, high-value apparel, boatbuilding, value addition to mineral resources, information technology, digital services and equipment required by the green-energy sector.

Attention should also be given to import substitution where it is economically justified. However, this must not become an excuse to maintain inefficient businesses indefinitely behind protective tariff walls. Incentives should be time-bound, performance-based and linked to measurable outcomes such as exports, employment creation, technology transfer and domestic value addition.

Lessons from East Asia

The economic transformation of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and China was not simply the automatic outcome of an entirely free market. These countries accepted market competition, but their Governments also provided a clear strategic direction.

Their transformation involved identifying priority industries, directing credit and financial facilities towards those sectors, investing in research and technology, developing a skilled workforce and helping domestic firms enter global markets. Businesses receiving state support were also expected to deliver measurable results in exports, productivity and technological advancement.

Nevertheless, the experiences of these countries cannot be copied blindly. Global trade rules, technology, automation, environmental constraints and international supply chains are very different from those that existed several decades ago.

Sri Lanka therefore needs a developmental state suited to the twenty-first century. This does not mean a state that makes every decision in place of the market. It means a state capable of identifying market failures and providing the strategic direction, infrastructure, technological foundations and institutional strength required to overcome them.

Neither a small State nor a large State-but an effective State

Sri Lanka should no longer remain trapped in outdated binary debates such as ‘privatisation or nationalisation?’ and ‘a smaller Government or a larger Government?’ What the country needs is an efficient, capable and results-oriented State.

Where the State engages in commercial activity, it should do so on the basis of a clearly defined national interest, professional management and measurable performance targets. Activities that can be carried out more efficiently by the private sector should be entrusted to it, while the Government must safeguard fair competition, consumer protection, environmental sustainability and national security.

A National Council for Production and Exports could be established to guide this economic transformation. Such a council should bring the relevant ministries, the Central Bank, the private sector, professional associations, universities and research institutions to the same table.

A five-year action plan should be prepared for every selected priority industry. Each plan should clearly define export-revenue and employment targets, technological and training requirements, necessary infrastructure, financing arrangements and the institutions responsible for implementation.

Progress should be independently evaluated each year. Incentives and projects that repeatedly fail to deliver their intended results should not be preserved indefinitely for political reasons. State support must cease to be regarded as an entitlement and instead become a responsibility tied directly to performance.

From stability to transformation

The current visit by the IMF delegation reminds Sri Lanka once again of the importance of fiscal discipline. Yet it also raises a far more important question: What kind of economy will Sri Lanka have become by the time the IMF program comes to an end?

If the country simply returns to its old import-and-consumption-driven economic model, the stability achieved today will amount to little more than a brief pause before the next crisis. However, if this opportunity is used to build an export-oriented production economy that integrates technology, knowledge, industry, agriculture and modern services, the IMF program can become more than a mechanism for crisis management. It can serve as a bridge towards national economic transformation.

The IMF is an essential piece in the jigsaw puzzle of a production-based economy. But it is not the complete picture.

The complete picture is a productive Sri Lanka that is capable of servicing its debt, supplying internationally competitive goods and services, creating dignified employment for its young people, and distributing the benefits of development fairly across all sections of society.

The responsibility for creating that picture does not belong to the IMF. It is entirely our own national responsibility.

Getting Ambulatory Curative Primary Care system right in Sri Lanka

Congratulations on a well-balanced editorial on Saturday which brilliantly gives a snapshot of the Government healthcare system in Sri Lanka. (See https://www.ft.lk/ft_view__editorial/Holistic-approach-for-healthcare-system/58-797133 ) The choice of title of the editorial (Holistic approach for healthcare system) brings out a very philosophical angle to healthcare.

Our hospital based health system (for right or wrong) is disease and doctors centred. This is so in many global settings particularly in Asia. A holistic health system ought to be health and patient centred.

Data indicates that on average only about 6-7 million admissions are recorded to Government hospitals annually. This is in contrast to 80 million who seek OPD (correct term is Ambulatory Primary Curative Care) in Government hospitals. To this figure one must add another 40-45 million private OPD visits.

In other words in contrast to popular belief healthcare (or in Sri Lanka’s case disease treatment) is not delivered in patient settings in Government hospitals. Rather it is delivered and consumed in Ambulatory Curative Primary Care (ACPC) system.

To further simplify the health seeking behaviour pattern of the Sri Lankan population – every man, woman and child visits an Ambulatory Curative Primary Care system 6 times per year).

This simple fact has been consistently, persistently, deliberately and to a degree negligently ignored by successive technocratic bureaucracy and political authorities in the country with a myriad of health (as opposed to disease consequences) impact to the population and tremendous financial burden to the treasury.

As such a reorientation of healthcare (health maintenance and disease care) to model based on provision of holistic health care (as opposed to disease or organ system based specialist care) is must.

In this context, establishment of Primary Curative Care Centres should be welcome provided the doctors manning these centres and providing care and treatment to those who access these centres are competent.

One cannot and should not accept the Final MBBS qualification as a competency to deliver the expected Primary Ambulatory Curative care at such centres.

Doctors with MBBS qualification before being posted to Ambulatory Primary Curative Care Centres must undergo a structured training program in the Principles and Concepts of General Practice/Family Medicine. At present Medical Officers of Health (MoH) who are posted to MoH officers all over the country to deliver Primary Preventive Care undergo an extensive in-service training program prior to taking up their posts in the Health Ministry. As such merely posting a doctor soon after his/her internship without an in-service training programme in Ambulatory Curative Care will cause more damage to patients and undermine the concept the government is trying to introduce.

In brief the following basic points must be included in a training program for such doctors to be places in Ambulatory Curative Primary Care Centres.

1. Knowledge/Skills/Attitudes to identify risk factors and/or make a diagnosis

2. Knowledge/Skills/ Attitude to control identified risk factors and/or commune treatment (pharmacological and non-pharmacological) of the abnormal parameters in the diagnosis made.

3. Knowledge/Skills/Attitudes to sustain control of the identified risk factors and/or treatment (pharmacological and non-pharmacological)of the abnormal parameters over time

4. Knowledge/Skills/Attitude to actively look for complications of the risk factors and/or diagnosis made.

5. Knowledge/Skills/Attitudes to manage (pharmacologically and non-pharmacologically) complications of the risk factors and/or diagnosis made.

6. Knowledge/Skills/Attitudes to identity emergencies of the risk factors and/or diagnosis made

7. Knowledge/Skills/Attitude to manage the emergencies identifies of the risk factors and/or diagnosis made

8. Knowledge/Skills/Attitude to identity risk factors and diagnosis which require immediate, intermediate and/or long term referral and/or follow up at secondary and/or tertiary and/or Supra specialised centres. (Referral -What, When, Where, and How. In this concept a system of back referral from higher centres to primary care to further manage patients becomes a must)

9.Knowledge/Skills/Attitude to conduct simple research projects based on the clinical and non-clinical data generated at the Ambulatory Curative Primary Care Centres.

The utopian outcome of such a training program for doctors to be stationed at Ambulatory Curative Care Centres is that they become and provide services to the local communities they are stationed in as five star doctors.

Caregiver – as opposed to doctors who only treat patients with pharmaceuticals

Decision Maker

Communicator – take the time and make the effort to explain to patient what is going on

Community leaders

Manager

There is no question that we need a reorientation of care provision and service delivery which maintains the concept of free at point of care healthcare service delivery. The question is how best do we do it, and for once may I urge the authorities to look at healthcare from the perspective of the patient rather than healthcare professionals and design a system which prioritises people’s needs over the needs of various health care professional groups. That, in the healthcare system perspective, will be a system change which we are expecting.

Maersk urges Sri Lanka to capture bigger share of global logistics value chain

Sri Lanka should move beyond its traditional role as a transshipment hub and build a broader logistics ecosystem capable of capturing higher-value activities and attracting foreign investment, A.P. Moller-Maersk Singapore Managing Director Rene Piil Pedersen said.

Speaking during a panel discussion at the Colombo International Maritime and Logistics Conference 2026 last week, he said the combination of Colombo’s strategic location and stronger logistics capabilities could allow Sri Lanka to participate in far more of the global supply chain.

Pedersen, whose responsibilities span Maersk’s shipping, terminal and landside logistics operations, said the company’s role was fundamentally to enable trade with the benefits extending beyond simply moving containers through a port.

‘The real transformation happens when you combine a hub with strong logistics capability. That combination creates an ecosystem far bigger than the sum of its parts, and it’s also what attracts FDI,’ he said.

He pointed to Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia as examples of markets, where the combination of port infrastructure and logistics services had created opportunities well beyond conventional transshipment.

For Sri Lanka, he said, the opportunity was to capture a larger portion of the value generated around international trade.

‘Sri Lanka has the opportunity to capture a much larger share of the value chain; not just in distribution, but in value-added services,’ Pedersen said.

He cited Singapore’s free-trade-zone model, where products such as Scotch whisky can be imported, stored and subsequently labelled according to the requirements of different destination markets.

‘Such activities generate economic value without the country having to manufacture the underlying product. With Sri Lanka located alongside one of the world’s major shipping routes, similar opportunities existed to develop logistics and value-added services around the Port of Colombo,’ he explained.

Pedersen said the immediate challenge for Sri Lanka is to translate its geographical advantage into a comprehensive maritime and logistics proposition.

‘Seize the day. Sri Lanka has the opportunity to make this happen. Your geographic position and your standing as an important hub for the region and globally,’ he said, noting that the FMC’s representation at the conference is a clear testament to it.

SITA Switzerland gets five-year $ 4 m SriLankan Airlines’ Global Network Infrastructure contract

The Cabinet of Ministers has approved the awarding of a contract for the provision of Global Network Infrastructure Services to SriLankan Airlines Ltd., to SITA Switzerland SARL, the sole bidder to respond in substance to an international competitive bidding process.

The contract, valued at $ 4.01 million, will run for a five-year period from 1 October 2026 to 30 September 2031, covering the airline’s needs upon the expiry of its existing service contract.

The procurement was initiated to secure a service provider capable of delivering a secure, resilient and highly efficient global network infrastructure platform; one required to interconnect critical systems across the airline’s operations, including passenger systems, departure control systems, ticketing and reservation systems, cargo management systems, and airport operations systems.

Addressing the weekly post-Cabinet media briefing, Cabinet Spokesman and Minister Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa said bids were invited under the International Competitive Bidding Procedure to select a new service provider, but only one bid was submitted for the contract. ‘Based on the recommendation of the High-Level Standing Procurement Committee, the Cabinet approved awarding the contract to SITA Switzerland SARL on that basis,’ he added.

The proposal to this effect was submitted by Ports and Civil Aviation Minister Anura Karunathilake.

Cabinet grants strategic importance status to Prime Melva for Rs. 56 b Port City waterfront project

The Cabinet of Ministers on Monday approved designating Prime Melva Ltd., as a primary business of strategic importance under the Colombo Port City Economic Commission Act, No. 11 of 2021, paving the way for the company to receive exemptions or incentives tied to its planned waterfront development in the Colombo Port City.

Under Section 53 of the Act, provisions exist for designating a business as being of strategic importance and for granting it corresponding exemptions or incentives, subject to Cabinet approval.

‘Prime Melva has proposed an investment of $ 112.2 million and Rs. 15.9 billion over the coming years to implement a landmark mixed-use waterfront project within the Port City, expected to generate employment for around 800 people,’ Cabinet Spokesman and Minister Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa said at the weekly post-Cabinet meeting media briefing yesterday.

He said the proposal, submitted by President Anura Kumara Disanayake in his capacity as the Finance, Planning and Economic Development Minister, to grant the relevant exemptions and incentives to Prime Melva and formally designate the company’s business as being of strategic importance, was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers at their meeting held on Monday.

When asked Dr Jayatissa how criteria are determined for selecting such companies and the benefits granted to them, he said the designation of a business as being of primary strategic importance is carried out under the provisions of the Colombo Port City Economic Commission Act.

Noting that several similar projects have been announced in the past, the Cabinet Spokesman said definite details on the selection criteria, procedures and specific tax concessions were not immediately available, but assured these would be provided next week if required.