60 ongoing large-scale projects provide only 4% trilingual information

Stepmotherly treatment given to Sinhala and Tamil

By Sanath Nanayakkare

Sixty ongoing large-scale infrastructure projects worth over a trillion rupees, provide a meager 4% online information disclosure in all three languages, Verité Research, said on Tuesday (28).

This happens, despite the Right to Information (RTI) Act Section 9, which requires government agencies to proactively disclose information on foreign and locally funded projects, researchers said.

The Infrastructure Watch launched on 09 June 2022 on Verité Research’s PublicFinance.lk platform assesses the proactive disclosure of information online by the ministries and agencies responsible for the implementation of these ongoing large-scale infrastructure projects worth Rs. 1.08 trillion.

It assesses the online availability of 40 different types of information within five broad categories. In addition to the proactive disclosure assessment, the dashboard also provides access to an online repository of procurement contracts and loan agreements of various foreign-funded infrastructure projects.

“The present economic crisis is partly due to opaque decision-making and corrupt implementation of projects through increased debt. The “Infrastructure watch” dashboard will increase awareness among the public and government agencies on the importance of proactively sharing information on large infrastructure projects,” Verité Research said.

Breakdown of accessibility by language favours English medium readers with a higher percentage of 18%. The total online information disclosure in Sinhala and Tamil is 5% and 4% respectively. The information available in all three languages about these 60 ongoing projects is only 4%.

It involves 18 foreign projects valued at Rs. 598 billion and 42 local projects valued at Rs. 484 billion.

Some projects offer 0% information disclosure. These include Housing for Conflict Affected Families in Northern and Eastern Province valued at Rs. 29,702 million and water supply to Kurunegala, Kundasale – Kandy East, valued at Rs. 22,000 million.