Faizal Salieh re-elected as Chairman of Sri Lanka Institute of Directors

Head table 

Faizal Salieh was unanimously re-elected as Chairman of the Sri Lanka Institute of Directors (SLID) for the year 2022/23, at the SLID’s Annual General Meeting held recently. 
Aroshi Nanayakkara and Dinesh Weerakkody were elected as Senior Vice Chairperson and Vice Chairman, respectively. 

Prakash Schaffter, Dilshan Rodrigo, Aruni Rajakarier, Ravi Abeysuriya, Manohari Abeyesekera, Charaka Perera and Rolf Blaser were elected to the Council with Immediate Past Chairman A.R. Rasiah continuing in his ex-officio capacity. 
High Commissioner of Bangladesh to Sri Lanka Tareq Md Ariful Islam was the chief guest at the event while Embassy of Japan to Sri Lanka Deputy Head of Mission Katsuki Kotaro was the guest of honour. 

“The last financial year was an extremely challenging period for us. COVID-19’s impact on both business and society in the early part of the year was aggravated by the shocking precipitation of an unprecedented national economic and political crisis in the latter part. The entire country remains hugely stressed and strained searching for solutions to both parts of the crisis. As an institute that stands for good governance at every level, we are appalled at the visible breakdown of governance at both political and economic levels in our country and support the call of the people for the restoration of good governance as a necessary condition for the nation’s political and economic recovery, stability and well-being,” said Salieh in his speech. 

“Following the leadership change at the last annual general membership elections in August 2021, the new Governing Council made some strategic decisions to elevate the image of the institute, enhance its visibility and introduce new value propositions to our members. We decided to revisit our strategies, leverage on our history and past achievements and set some new and innovative goals and objectives in an extremely challenging operating environment,” Salieh said commenting on the performance of the institute in the previous year.
He said that the institute had issued a public statement against corruption and on the need to eliminate it at business, public and government levels. 

“Sadly, bribery has acquired a new label called facilitation fees in business today. Business seems to have accepted bribery and corruption as a necessary evil. But we all know that corruption discourages investment, leads to the misallocation of resources and is a miserable social evil,” he noted. 

Salieh further stated that the SLID has entered into a memorandum of understanding with Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) to launch an anti-corruption theme called Business Against Corruption. Under this theme, the institute in partnership with TISL would enable business to rise and pledge against corruption, build a resilience framework and create pathways to abhor and avoid corruption. The initiative will call upon corporates, SOEs, family-owned businesses, MMEs and SMEs to join the collective action against corruption. 
Salieh also commented upon three other alarming concerns arising from the crisis – the threat of collapse faced by SME businesses, unusually large number of youths preparing to leave the country in disgust and despair and lack of public consciousness about protecting public assets. 

“We, as a nation, cannot ignore these alarming situations,” he said and urged the political leadership to expeditiously restore national stability. 
Salieh also took the opportunity to launch a collective pledge to facilitate the participation of women in a meaningful manner in all of the SLID’s programmes, events and activities and a code of ethics and professional conduct for members at the event.