Features
Starting work at WHO in Geneva with the Community Based Rehabilitation Project
(Excerpted from Memories that linger: My journey in the world of disability by Padmani Mendis)
All arrangements were made for travel on May 14. In those days the Swiss visa was obtained over the counter. Flights were frequent. Ticketing by Swiss Air was quick and easy. And made easier by an accessible manager. Punctual departure, smooth take off, much napping on the flight, it did not seem long before I awoke to hear our arrival in Geneva being announced.
As I looked out of the window dawn was just breaking. And what an astounding scenic feast awaited my eyes. The glow of the early sunrise bathing over beautiful snow-capped mountain peaks of all shapes and sizes stretching out forever. And the culmination of it – Mont Blanc rising majestically above them in all its glorious purity. So wondrous was the site that the pilot took us round twice over so we could drink in that vista. He took us as close as he could safely take us, so close that one felt one could almost touch the glorious mountain. It was a brief but exceptional experience never to be had again in all my flights over those Swiss mountains.
Thank you, Captain. I can still see Mont Blanc as it was that beautiful morning in May even as I write about it here, 43 years later.
In Geneva, I met Gunnel for the first time and we connected immediately. It was as though we had known each other forever. She and Einar were friends already, having worked together in Gothenburg, she as Head of Occupational Therapy and he as the Internal Medicine Specialist in charge of the Department of Rehabilitation. The three of us spent but little time on pleasantries and sat down together immediately to start our work on developing “Community Oriented Rehabilitation”. In this we were being very Swedish – time is too precious to be wasted.
We spent much time discussing the possible strategy that Einar had conceived and how it could be put on the ground. Then Einar would go off to attend to his other responsibilities in the unit while Gunnel and I actually started putting the ideas we had developed down on paper. Over the next few years we would be together in Geneva like this may be a couple of times a year, sharing our field experiences and our real-life learning. Using that to improve our materials and setting ever higher our goals aimed at a better life for disabled people.
And then to go away again to carry out more evaluation and gain more learning.
Community-Based Rehabilitation or CBR
During one such discussion in the early days we knew we had not got something quite right. “Orienting” rehabilitation to communities does not go quite far enough, we agreed. What we were discussing was something far deeper, penetrating the communities in which disabled people lived, promoting ownership of the rehabilitation process by those community members and disabled people together. For we knew from our own experiences and discussions with others that change would come only with ownership of, and responsibility for, the process of change.
Then Eureka! We got it right. Rehabilitation must be based in the Community we exclaimed almost together. It must be part of the fabric of each community. What we are talking about is Community-Based Rehabilitation. And so the term was born. Einar immediately went further. Ever the innovator, “We can shorten it to CBR,” he said.
And that is how the world came to know it – CBR, at that time as it does today.
The use of the word “based” had also another very important implication. We knew that all rehabilitation tasks could not be carried out at the community level. Support from outside would no doubt be required to assist them to solve those problems that they could not solve by themselves. The term CBR implied that a supporting structure was called for.
Einar
Einar had come to take up his post at WHO some four years earlier. His high level of intellect and intensively scientific mind is combined with an unlimited visionary outlook. All of which makes him a truly unique individual. For disability globally he was the right man at the right time at the right job. His concern was for the poor and the needy, the vulnerable, the marginalised, the neglected.
And that concern knew no bounds. Son of a Swedish Bishop, he grew up when poverty was the norm in Sweden. Before the Swedes discovered the value of the abundance of trees that nature had blessed their land with. He told me how he would see individuals rummaging in garbage bins where he grew up in Stockholm in the same way he saw people now in the poorer countries that he visited.
He was a sensitive individual. It was no surprise that he made it his first priority when he came to WHO to address the issues related to disabled people in developing countries. Issues of discrimination, disregard and destitution.
To understand these issues deeply, he selected a few countries to visit. Important to him was to reach rural areas where those most in need lived, to talk with them and their family members and others who lived in their neighbourhood. This gave him an understanding of how such people dealt with their problems and took steps to overcome them in the here and now. Because these people just had to. Life would have not been possible had they not.
One such country he chose to visit was in the Middle East. A recent disaster was created when poisoned cooking oil had been consumed by a significant section of the population. Many people, including a large number of children, had been paralysed by the poison. Various parts of their body had been affected. As a result, some had been unable to walk, others to move their legs or trunks, still others to use their arms. Einar was struck by the resilience of these people whose lives had been shattered by the cooking oil. The disaster impacted heavily on the severe financial and other difficulties most faced. It impacted on their day to day living and on their quality of life.
And yet these people had, to a large extent, reduced this impact by overcoming the effects the poison had on their bodies. Spending time with these people, Einar saw how mothers had made bars in their garden using branches of trees so that their children could hold onto them, use their legs to make them stronger and be able to walk again. He saw adults using suitably-shaped tree branches as crutches to enable them to walk and attend to farming. He talked with others who had been unable to move about make simple trolleys on which they could get to where they wanted, even involving themselves in trading.
In other countries he visited he met people who were deaf communicating with neighbours and others in their villages using simple signs which they had developed themselves. He saw blind people moving around the neighbourhood with a stick to guide them so that they were not isolated at home.
These visits constituted valuable learning for Einar. The learning converted into a seed from which grew the strategy that the world came to know and practice as Community-Based Rehabilitation or CBR.
Putting Learning into Practice and the Role of SIDA
Now he had to put the ideas he derived from the learning he acquired to WHO and get approval for action. Protocol required that he prepare an analysis of the situation of disabled people in developing countries to justify the recommendations he would make to WHO for a policy change. Preparing the policy document was a long process.
It was ultimately approved by WHO in 1978. The new policy direction was at that time called “Disability Prevention and Rehabilitation”. Later the programme name was changed to “Rehabilitation”.
Once approval was obtained, Einar had to seek extra budgetary funding to set in motion the beginnings of policy implementation. The Swedish International Development Agency or SIDA was particularly partial to the less fortunate in this world. The WHO’s new policy direction was attractive to them and they came to be a partner of the rehabilitation programme for the next decade or so. It is thanks to SIDA that Community-Based Rehabilitation was developed globally benefiting so many disabled people and their families throughout the developing world.
And it is also thanks to SIDA that Einar, Gunnel and I were now together in Geneva working on the CBR strategy and drafting a Manual that would start putting this policy into action. Then having done this, we would evaluate the practice of these in the field. Development of the CBR strategy with the Manual and its evaluation took until 1989. The Manual called “Training in the Community for People with Disabilities” became an official WHO publication that year. It was said by WHO some years ago that this Manual had been translated into over sixty languages and used in over 100 countries.
First Tasks
Carrying out these first tasks in Geneva in 1979 was no easy job. Drafting a Manual was arduous and exhausting. The first step was involving as many people as was practically possible and with them, collecting information. For this the assistance provided by a volunteer was invaluable. She had space in our room, joined us at our desk and sent off letters to as many sources as she could contact in any and every part of the world to seek their views on a possible strategy and its implementation.
Then she collated and tabulated the replies she received. Helen was from Australia. Her husband, a medical specialist was on contract to WHO for two years. Helen, herself a medical specialist but with no formal job had time on her hands, some of which she spent willingly with us.
As for Gunnel and me, one of our earliest tasks was to go round the “House” as the headquarters was often referred to. We met divisional heads and other officials in those departments that were relevant to disability and to what we were doing. These included for example mental health, accident prevention, blindness and deafness prevention, nursing, medical education and so on.
The response of most was seldom a positive or an encouraging one. Many were frankly discouraging. Some indicating that the idea of introducing rehabilitation strategies at community level was sheer madness. Which had Gunnel and I sometimes return to our room, close the door and shed buckets of tears. What were these people telling us? Did they not understand, not care? Where were we going?
Together we shared a strong belief with Einar that this was definitely the way to go and with this shared belief we overcame all obstacles. I recall one outstanding personality who gave us his wholehearted support from the word go. He was Jean Jacques Gilbert or JJ, a specialist in Medical Education and Head of that Department. He had done pioneering work in objectives-based teaching and evaluation of learning and was continuing to develop materials for medical education on these lines.
Einar and he shared a relationship based on mutual respect; each had an independent spirit and confidence in what the other was doing. Gunnel and I believed that what brought them together also was the antipathy to them shown by other professionals in the House. We believed also that the antipathy was a result of some envy of the intellectual and visionary capacity and the pioneering spirit demonstrated by both JJ and Einar.
Gunnel and I also grew a relationship of mutual respect with JJ. Over the next few years on our many stints in Geneva, Gunnel and I often turned to him for advice when we were stuck. The materials we developed were for self-learning, objectives-based and facilitated self-evaluation. So JJ’s advice was invaluable.
For me from Sri Lanka, his manner was sometimes embarrassing. Being a Frenchman and a gallant one at that, he would insist on greeting me by raising my hand to kiss the back of it with a bow, a real old-fashioned French style of greeting. This happened even when we met on a corridor. Strangely enough he never did that with Gunnel and that made me wonder, why not?
Gunnel and I experienced interactions within the House that resulted in both highs and lows for us. Neither of us liked the atmosphere that prevailed within it at that time, perhaps because we were women consultants, a relative rarity. But we loved our work and nothing could keep us away from that House.
Gathering More Information to Complete a Draft
Our initial work of gathering views and recommendations extended beyond the House to other institutions in Geneva. These included ILO, the International Labour Organisation, where we met Mr. Brown, a chubby, pleasant individual from England. He was supportive of our work from the time we told him of it. He cooperated with us to develop the strategy and evaluated those sections that were relevant to work, particularly the module on income generation.
Mr. Brown was responsible for having ILO formally recognised as a co-producer of the draft Manual with the ILO logo alongside that of WHO on the cover. So did UNDP, UNICEF and UNESCO have their logos on the cover.
Gunnel and I also visited UNESCO in Paris to meet Lena Saleh from Jordan. Lena was the single worker in the Special Education Section as it was then called, fighting a lone battle to improve the education of disabled children. The way she fought this battle alone was by producing booklets and other material for distribution and use in developing countries. One person alone in Paris reaching and impacting the right to education of many thousands of children and their teachers who were far away. Einar and Lena were good friends, their common approach to work bringing them together.
The Manual “Training in the Community for People with Disabilities”: Knowledge is Power
The WHO Manual “Training in the Community for People with Disabilities” or TCPD contains knowledge, and Knowledge is Power. This is the overall, the primary purpose of the Manual. That disabled people, their families and their communities will have power; power in their own hands to change their situations. Today we call this empowerment. That word empowerment was not used then, but here was the concept of empowerment in practice.
In the absence of knowledge together with the power to use it and to know how to use it, no change is possible. The overall design and content of the Manual has therefore a dual role: one, how to change their situation which was called the CBR strategy, and two, the CBR technology. The technology was actions made possible with knowledge and skills. The Manual has also built into it a monitoring and evaluation system to check that both are working.
A term that was not used at the time the Manual was first drafted, was community mobilisation. But this process of community mobilisation is the foundation of CBR. It is described in the Manual as including the following: bringing members of a community together, enabling them to talk about any problems within their group related to disability, discussing the resources they themselves had to deal with such problems and what more they may need, making available to them the knowledge and skills they need to do these, providing them with the support they needed and making all this sustainable.
In a nutshell, this is the CBR process. The Manual was not designed for professionals. It was essentially for CBR implementation within rural communities. With some adaptations it was also used in urban communities
by Dr Gotabhya Ranasinghe
Senior Consultant Cardiologist
National Hospital Sri Lanka
When we sought a meeting with Hon Dr. Ramesh Pathirana, Minister of Health, he graciously cleared his busy schedule to accommodate us. Renowned for his attentive listening and deep understanding, Minister Pathirana is dedicated to advancing the health sector. His openness and transparency exemplify the qualities of an exemplary politician and minister.
Dr. Palitha Mahipala, the current Health Secretary, demonstrates both commendable enthusiasm and unwavering support. This combination of attributes makes him a highly compatible colleague for the esteemed Minister of Health.
Our discussion centered on a project that has been in the works for the past 30 years, one that no other minister had managed to advance.
Minister Pathirana, however, recognized the project’s significance and its potential to revolutionize care for heart patients.
The project involves the construction of a state-of-the-art facility at the premises of the National Hospital Colombo. The project’s location within the premises of the National Hospital underscores its importance and relevance to the healthcare infrastructure of the nation.
This facility will include a cardiology building and a tertiary care center, equipped with the latest technology to handle and treat all types of heart-related conditions and surgeries.
Securing funding was a major milestone for this initiative. Minister Pathirana successfully obtained approval for a $40 billion loan from the Asian Development Bank. With the funding in place, the foundation stone is scheduled to be laid in September this year, and construction will begin in January 2025.
This project guarantees a consistent and uninterrupted supply of stents and related medications for heart patients. As a result, patients will have timely access to essential medical supplies during their treatment and recovery. By securing these critical resources, the project aims to enhance patient outcomes, minimize treatment delays, and maintain the highest standards of cardiac care.
Upon its fruition, this monumental building will serve as a beacon of hope and healing, symbolizing the unwavering dedication to improving patient outcomes and fostering a healthier society.We anticipate a future marked by significant progress and positive outcomes in Sri Lanka’s cardiovascular treatment landscape within the foreseeable timeframe.
by Fr. Emmanuel Fernando, OMI
Jesuit Fr. Aloysius Pieris (affectionately called Fr. Aloy) celebrated his 90th birthday on April 9, 2024 and I, as the editor of our Oblate Journal, THE MISSIONARY OBLATE had gone to press by that time. Immediately I decided to publish an article, appreciating the untiring selfless services he continues to offer for inter-Faith dialogue, the renewal of the Catholic Church, his concern for the poor and the suffering Sri Lankan masses and to me, the present writer.
It was in 1988, when I was appointed Director of the Oblate Scholastics at Ampitiya by the then Oblate Provincial Fr. Anselm Silva, that I came to know Fr. Aloy more closely. Knowing well his expertise in matters spiritual, theological, Indological and pastoral, and with the collaborative spirit of my companion-formators, our Oblate Scholastics were sent to Tulana, the Research and Encounter Centre, Kelaniya, of which he is the Founder-Director, for ‘exposure-programmes’ on matters spiritual, biblical, theological and pastoral. Some of these dimensions according to my view and that of my companion-formators, were not available at the National Seminary, Ampitiya.
Ever since that time, our Oblate formators/ accompaniers at the Oblate Scholasticate, Ampitiya , have continued to send our Oblate Scholastics to Tulana Centre for deepening their insights and convictions regarding matters needed to serve the people in today’s context. Fr. Aloy also had tried very enthusiastically with the Oblate team headed by Frs. Oswald Firth and Clement Waidyasekara to begin a Theologate, directed by the Religious Congregations in Sri Lanka, for the contextual formation/ accompaniment of their members. It should very well be a desired goal of the Leaders / Provincials of the Religious Congregations.
Besides being a formator/accompanier at the Oblate Scholasticate, I was entrusted also with the task of editing and publishing our Oblate journal, ‘The Missionary Oblate’. To maintain the quality of the journal I continue to depend on Fr. Aloy for his thought-provoking and stimulating articles on Biblical Spirituality, Biblical Theology and Ecclesiology. I am very grateful to him for his generous assistance. Of late, his writings on renewal of the Church, initiated by Pope St. John XX111 and continued by Pope Francis through the Synodal path, published in our Oblate journal, enable our readers to focus their attention also on the needed renewal in the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka. Fr. Aloy appreciated very much the Synodal path adopted by the Jesuit Pope Francis for the renewal of the Church, rooted very much on prayerful discernment. In my Religious and presbyteral life, Fr.Aloy continues to be my spiritual animator / guide and ongoing formator / acccompanier.
Fr. Aloysius Pieris, BA Hons (Lond), LPh (SHC, India), STL (PFT, Naples), PhD (SLU/VC), ThD (Tilburg), D.Ltt (KU), has been one of the eminent Asian theologians well recognized internationally and one who has lectured and held visiting chairs in many universities both in the West and in the East. Many members of Religious Congregations from Asian countries have benefited from his lectures and guidance in the East Asian Pastoral Institute (EAPI) in Manila, Philippines. He had been a Theologian consulted by the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences for many years. During his professorship at the Gregorian University in Rome, he was called to be a member of a special group of advisers on other religions consulted by Pope Paul VI.
Fr. Aloy is the author of more than 30 books and well over 500 Research Papers. Some of his books and articles have been translated and published in several countries. Among those books, one can find the following: 1) The Genesis of an Asian Theology of Liberation (An Autobiographical Excursus on the Art of Theologising in Asia, 2) An Asian Theology of Liberation, 3) Providential Timeliness of Vatican 11 (a long-overdue halt to a scandalous millennium, 4) Give Vatican 11 a chance, 5) Leadership in the Church, 6) Relishing our faith in working for justice (Themes for study and discussion), 7) A Message meant mainly, not exclusively for Jesuits (Background information necessary for helping Francis renew the Church), 8) Lent in Lanka (Reflections and Resolutions, 9) Love meets wisdom (A Christian Experience of Buddhism, 10) Fire and Water 11) God’s Reign for God’s poor, 12) Our Unhiddden Agenda (How we Jesuits work, pray and form our men). He is also the Editor of two journals, Vagdevi, Journal of Religious Reflection and Dialogue, New Series.
Fr. Aloy has a BA in Pali and Sanskrit from the University of London and a Ph.D in Buddhist Philosophy from the University of Sri Lankan, Vidyodaya Campus. On Nov. 23, 2019, he was awarded the prestigious honorary Doctorate of Literature (D.Litt) by the Chancellor of the University of Kelaniya, the Most Venerable Welamitiyawe Dharmakirthi Sri Kusala Dhamma Thera.
Fr. Aloy continues to be a promoter of Gospel values and virtues. Justice as a constitutive dimension of love and social concern for the downtrodden masses are very much noted in his life and work. He had very much appreciated the commitment of the late Fr. Joseph (Joe) Fernando, the National Director of the Social and Economic Centre (SEDEC) for the poor.
In Sri Lanka, a few religious Congregations – the Good Shepherd Sisters, the Christian Brothers, the Marist Brothers and the Oblates – have invited him to animate their members especially during their Provincial Congresses, Chapters and International Conferences. The mainline Christian Churches also have sought his advice and followed his seminars. I, for one, regret very much, that the Sri Lankan authorities of the Catholic Church –today’s Hierarchy—- have not sought Fr.
Aloy’s expertise for the renewal of the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka and thus have not benefited from the immense store of wisdom and insight that he can offer to our local Church while the Sri Lankan bishops who governed the Catholic church in the immediate aftermath of the Second Vatican Council (Edmund Fernando OMI, Anthony de Saram, Leo Nanayakkara OSB, Frank Marcus Fernando, Paul Perera,) visited him and consulted him on many matters. Among the Tamil Bishops, Bishop Rayappu Joseph was keeping close contact with him and Bishop J. Deogupillai hosted him and his team visiting him after the horrible Black July massacre of Tamils.
Sri Lanka-Singapore Free Trade Agreement
By Gomi Senadhira
senadhiragomi@gmail.com
“You might tell fairy tales, but the progress of a country cannot be achieved through such narratives. A country cannot be developed by making false promises. The country moved backward because of the electoral promises made by political parties throughout time. We have witnessed that the ultimate result of this is the country becoming bankrupt. Unfortunately, many segments of the population have not come to realize this yet.” – President Ranil Wickremesinghe, 2024 Budget speech
Any Sri Lankan would agree with the above words of President Wickremesinghe on the false promises our politicians and officials make and the fairy tales they narrate which bankrupted this country. So, to understand this, let’s look at one such fairy tale with lots of false promises; Ranil Wickremesinghe’s greatest achievement in the area of international trade and investment promotion during the Yahapalana period, Sri Lanka-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (SLSFTA).
It is appropriate and timely to do it now as Finance Minister Wickremesinghe has just presented to parliament a bill on the National Policy on Economic Transformation which includes the establishment of an Office for International Trade and the Sri Lanka Institute of Economics and International Trade.
Was SLSFTA a “Cleverly negotiated Free Trade Agreement” as stated by the (former) Minister of Development Strategies and International Trade Malik Samarawickrama during the Parliamentary Debate on the SLSFTA in July 2018, or a colossal blunder covered up with lies, false promises, and fairy tales? After SLSFTA was signed there were a number of fairy tales published on this agreement by the Ministry of Development Strategies and International, Institute of Policy Studies, and others.
However, for this article, I would like to limit my comments to the speech by Minister Samarawickrama during the Parliamentary Debate, and the two most important areas in the agreement which were covered up with lies, fairy tales, and false promises, namely: revenue loss for Sri Lanka and Investment from Singapore. On the other important area, “Waste products dumping” I do not want to comment here as I have written extensively on the issue.
1. The revenue loss
During the Parliamentary Debate in July 2018, Minister Samarawickrama stated “…. let me reiterate that this FTA with Singapore has been very cleverly negotiated by us…. The liberalisation programme under this FTA has been carefully designed to have the least impact on domestic industry and revenue collection. We have included all revenue sensitive items in the negative list of items which will not be subject to removal of tariff. Therefore, 97.8% revenue from Customs duty is protected. Our tariff liberalisation will take place over a period of 12-15 years! In fact, the revenue earned through tariffs on goods imported from Singapore last year was Rs. 35 billion.
The revenue loss for over the next 15 years due to the FTA is only Rs. 733 million– which when annualised, on average, is just Rs. 51 million. That is just 0.14% per year! So anyone who claims the Singapore FTA causes revenue loss to the Government cannot do basic arithmetic! Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I call on my fellow members of this House – don’t mislead the public with baseless criticism that is not grounded in facts. Don’t look at petty politics and use these issues for your own political survival.”
I was surprised to read the minister’s speech because an article published in January 2018 in “The Straits Times“, based on information released by the Singaporean Negotiators stated, “…. With the FTA, tariff savings for Singapore exports are estimated to hit $10 million annually“.
As the annual tariff savings (that is the revenue loss for Sri Lanka) calculated by the Singaporean Negotiators, Singaporean $ 10 million (Sri Lankan rupees 1,200 million in 2018) was way above the rupees’ 733 million revenue loss for 15 years estimated by the Sri Lankan negotiators, it was clear to any observer that one of the parties to the agreement had not done the basic arithmetic!
Six years later, according to a report published by “The Morning” newspaper, speaking at the Committee on Public Finance (COPF) on 7th May 2024, Mr Samarawickrama’s chief trade negotiator K.J. Weerasinghehad had admitted “…. that forecasted revenue loss for the Government of Sri Lanka through the Singapore FTA is Rs. 450 million in 2023 and Rs. 1.3 billion in 2024.”
If these numbers are correct, as tariff liberalisation under the SLSFTA has just started, we will pass Rs 2 billion very soon. Then, the question is how Sri Lanka’s trade negotiators made such a colossal blunder. Didn’t they do their basic arithmetic? If they didn’t know how to do basic arithmetic they should have at least done their basic readings. For example, the headline of the article published in The Straits Times in January 2018 was “Singapore, Sri Lanka sign FTA, annual savings of $10m expected”.
Anyway, as Sri Lanka’s chief negotiator reiterated at the COPF meeting that “…. since 99% of the tariffs in Singapore have zero rates of duty, Sri Lanka has agreed on 80% tariff liberalisation over a period of 15 years while expecting Singapore investments to address the imbalance in trade,” let’s turn towards investment.
Investment from Singapore
In July 2018, speaking during the Parliamentary Debate on the FTA this is what Minister Malik Samarawickrama stated on investment from Singapore, “Already, thanks to this FTA, in just the past two-and-a-half months since the agreement came into effect we have received a proposal from Singapore for investment amounting to $ 14.8 billion in an oil refinery for export of petroleum products. In addition, we have proposals for a steel manufacturing plant for exports ($ 1 billion investment), flour milling plant ($ 50 million), sugar refinery ($ 200 million). This adds up to more than $ 16.05 billion in the pipeline on these projects alone.
And all of these projects will create thousands of more jobs for our people. In principle approval has already been granted by the BOI and the investors are awaiting the release of land the environmental approvals to commence the project.
I request the Opposition and those with vested interests to change their narrow-minded thinking and join us to develop our country. We must always look at what is best for the whole community, not just the few who may oppose. We owe it to our people to courageously take decisions that will change their lives for the better.”
According to the media report I quoted earlier, speaking at the Committee on Public Finance (COPF) Chief Negotiator Weerasinghe has admitted that Sri Lanka was not happy with overall Singapore investments that have come in the past few years in return for the trade liberalisation under the Singapore-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement. He has added that between 2021 and 2023 the total investment from Singapore had been around $162 million!
What happened to those projects worth $16 billion negotiated, thanks to the SLSFTA, in just the two-and-a-half months after the agreement came into effect and approved by the BOI? I do not know about the steel manufacturing plant for exports ($ 1 billion investment), flour milling plant ($ 50 million) and sugar refinery ($ 200 million).
However, story of the multibillion-dollar investment in the Petroleum Refinery unfolded in a manner that would qualify it as the best fairy tale with false promises presented by our politicians and the officials, prior to 2019 elections.
Though many Sri Lankans got to know, through the media which repeatedly highlighted a plethora of issues surrounding the project and the questionable credentials of the Singaporean investor, the construction work on the Mirrijiwela Oil Refinery along with the cement factory began on the24th of March 2019 with a bang and Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his ministers along with the foreign and local dignitaries laid the foundation stones.
That was few months before the 2019 Presidential elections. Inaugurating the construction work Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said the projects will create thousands of job opportunities in the area and surrounding districts.
The oil refinery, which was to be built over 200 acres of land, with the capacity to refine 200,000 barrels of crude oil per day, was to generate US$7 billion of exports and create 1,500 direct and 3,000 indirect jobs. The construction of the refinery was to be completed in 44 months. Four years later, in August 2023 the Cabinet of Ministers approved the proposal presented by President Ranil Wickremesinghe to cancel the agreement with the investors of the refinery as the project has not been implemented! Can they explain to the country how much money was wasted to produce that fairy tale?
It is obvious that the President, ministers, and officials had made huge blunders and had deliberately misled the public and the parliament on the revenue loss and potential investment from SLSFTA with fairy tales and false promises.
As the president himself said, a country cannot be developed by making false promises or with fairy tales and these false promises and fairy tales had bankrupted the country. “Unfortunately, many segments of the population have not come to realize this yet”.
(The writer, a specialist and an activist on trade and development issues . )
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