The government has handed appointment letters to a chief executive officer and a group of senior officers of the Co-operative Wholesale Establishment, reviving a state trading corporation that had been placed under liquidation, the Ministry of Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Cooperative Development said on Monday.
The letters were presented at the ministry at a ceremony chaired by Trade Minister Wasantha Samarasinghe, the ministry said in a statement reported by Hiru News.
What the CWE is
The Co-operative Wholesale Establishment was created by Act No. 47 of 1949, which makes it one of the oldest corporations in the Sri Lankan state sector. The ministry described its historic role as supplying consumers’ daily food needs through three channels: direct imports from abroad, purchases of local farm produce, and a wide distribution network.
The ministry said the institution was shut down under the previous government and its employees sent home.
A Cabinet decision was subsequently taken to re-establish it, the statement said, in order to secure state intervention in supplying food at fair prices. Work has since been done to identify the assets of the closed corporation and to design a new mechanism for direct importing, buying farm produce directly from growers, and distributing it across the country.
CWE and Sathosa are not the same thing
Hiru’s headline presents the subject as “Sathosa (CWE)”, and the two names are routinely used interchangeably in Sri Lanka. They are not identical.
Lanka Sathosa Ltd is the retail chain — the outlets where this desk has previously reported price caps on essential items and subsidised wheat flour. The CWE is the wholesale corporation created in 1949, historically the parent body. Monday’s statement is about the CWE: it cites the 1949 Act, liquidation, and a wholesale function. Readers should not take it as an announcement about Sathosa shop prices.
Not reported
The ministry’s statement does not date the Cabinet decision, name the incoming chief executive or any of the other appointees, say how many posts were filled, or give a date for the corporation resuming trade. It does not state what the identified assets are worth, how the revived body will be capitalised, or how its wholesale operation will relate to Lanka Sathosa’s retail network. No figure is given for the staff who lost their jobs when it closed.
Sources: Hiru News.
