About JICS's Procurement Services

Chandana Samarasinghe
Director General of Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority (SLSEA), Ministry of Power & Energy [Sri Lanka] ( July, 2010)

D. Chrishanthi W. Hapugoda
Director of Department of External Resources, Ministry of Finance and Planning [Sri Lanka] ( July, 2010)

1. What do you think of JICS's procurement services which have been performed in the ongoing project? Any comments or advice are welcome.

I believe JICS has performed their procurement services for the implementation of the Project. In particular the good communications are emphasized as the local project staff of JICS in Colombo plays an important role for the close relationships and quick response. As illustrated in the process of decision-making, JICS has taken a right step to form a consensus among us fairly and transparently. In our experiences, JICS has never enforced their own opinion or result and tries to have deep discussions and dialogue as much as possible, while part of the international organizations sometimes try to push their own opinion to us.

2. What do you expect of JICS's services in addition to the currently performed services? If you have any particular issue or agenda, please bring them up.

For the moment, we don't have any issue or agenda to discuss for the betterment of JICS's performance. We are satisfied with their performance and hope the quality of the services should be maintained as well.

3. In this trip to Japan, could you give us your impression or observation about Japan? (Japan's economy, culture, holidays, etc. Any agenda are welcome.)

I came to be familiar with Japanese culture, food, life style and now enjoy them. In addition, Japanese people are polite enough to help us when encountered with difficulties. To be remarked, the outstanding improvement of the English language is so much helpful to us. I respect and love those good culture and nationality.

4. Could you give us any message or advice to JICS staff? Encouraging message, bitter advice, request, etc. Any comments are welcome.

The procurement services done by JICS are quite fair and transparent, and each process has been implemented through close and frequent communications, where we put not a little appraisal. But if I dare to request, JICS's staff could be stationed in Colombo for a longer period as Mr. Jinbo, who was the program manager stayed long in Non-Project Grant Aid for Tsunami-Disaster relief a few years ago. We will welcome the arrival of JICS staff in Tokyo at any time for the success of the Project.

We (SLSEA: Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority) have been implementing several Projects for Energy Efficiency Improvement as counterpart under Japan's ODA since year of 2006 in Sri Lanka. The ongoing project of solar electricity generation system is one of them. I'm confident this project is important enough to achieve the overall and successful improvement of energy sector in Sri Lanka including better capacity building of our organization and staff. By taking this opportunity, we would like to express our sincere appreciation to Japan's nations and expect further contribution by JICS as a professional procurement agent.

（Edit: July 8, 2010）