Features
Viruses and Life on Earth
Abrupt changes in the number of living animals in past millennia? Major dips indicate mass extinctions following cataclysmic events (last one: picture above uc.sc). Minor dips represent declines in dominant species likely to be caused by viral pandemics
By prof. Kirthi Tennakone
National Institute of Fundamental Studies
Viruses exist everywhere in association with living things, decisively influencing their evolution as well as behaviour. A virus secures a message encoded in its genome by a cover of proteins and lipids – carrying a warning, as if written and kept in a sealed envelope to be opened.
When a species attempts to be too smart by exploiting common resources and procreate endlessly; the virus intervenes to control the expansion.
Pandemics and epidemics caused by viruses had adversely affected humans, colonies of animals and cultivations. Nonetheless, the mission of viruses to alert species to not monopolise and expand; appears to be a crucial factor that diversified and preserved life on earth. What viruses do today to teach us is painful, but they were our progenitors and saviors.
If not for viruses and pandemics they created in the past; we ourselves and lively animals and plants around us would not have existed. Viruses may also have acted as the precursor agent which created life.
The origin of life on earth, its evolution into species has been shaped by viruses. Until humans evolved, viruses did not permit one species to dominate and rule the earth. They might dictate terms to us in future and sway our destiny.
Origin of viruses and origin of life
How viruses came to being remains a puzzle intimately connected with the mystery of the origin of life. Although life occurs everywhere on earth in different forms and perhaps in planets circling distant stars – what life means, evades rigorous and consistent definition. Generally, entities capable of storing information and replicate by digestion of substances in the environment are considered as living. Another characteristic of life is the aptness to undergo Darwinian evolution – the inherent capacity to mutate into variants so that ones fitting the environment survive and reproduce. For this reason, United States National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) defined life as self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution. In terms of above interpretations; viruses fall outside the domain of living systems, because they can replicate only by entering a living cell and hijacking its machinery to reproduce. Unlike bacteria, viruses cannot grow in dead animal or plant tissue. Possibly they stand in between living and non-living, based exclusively on ribonucleic acid (RNA) when they first originated. Quite a number of present day pathogenic viruses are also RNA based.
RNA is a chain like motif decorated with four different types of molecular beads referred to as nucleotides bases, denoted by symbols A, C, G and U. The sequential arrangement of the beads encode information; just like a message written in a four letter alphabet language.
According to one school of thought, viruses came first and evolved into advanced forms of life. Later they learned to invade living organisms as parasites. This idea supports RNA hypothesis of the origin of life, where most primitive replicating biomolecules were considered to be forms of RNA; naturally synthesised out of nucleotides floating in prebiotic oceans.
If viruses came first; why did they resort to parasitism later? Possibly as life in prebiotic oceans advanced evolving into cellular organisms; chemical substances essential for primitive viruses to breed were exhausted, forcing those viral variants with a taste for cellular life to proliferate.
Viruses are the smallest self-replicating entities; size ranging from 200 – 400 nanometers (1 nanometer = one millionth of a millimeter), but their reproduction happens inside a living cell. Recently several types of giant viruses, larger than 1000 nanometers and comparable to size of an average bacterium has been discovered. Amazingly these giant viruses self-replicate, just like unicellular microbes without a host cell – suggesting virus-like entities finally evolved into advanced forms of life. The very thing from which we may have been created is now threatening us!
How viruses infect cells?
Viruses attack animals, plants, bacteria and all the other cellular organisms. They are host specific; a virus sickening an animal, rarely infect humans directly. The host specificity generally depends on ability of the pathogen to bind or attach to the host cell membrane. To impregnate genetic information, the virus must affix itself to the tissues of the host. Viruses have acquired intricate strategies to invade the cells by this mechanism. The outer shell of a virus known as the capsid serves to protect its genome. The structure of the capsid and proteins there have evolved to anchor the virus into specific sites in host tissue known as receptors. In the case of the corona virus, a protein in the spikes bind to a receptor on the host cell membrane named ACE2 – kind of protein found in a wide range of human cell membranes – notably those in mouth, nose, throat and lungs.
After binding to the receptor, virus injects the genetic substance to the interior of the cell. Viral RNA or DNA (some viruses are DNA based) intermingle with DNA of the cell. Thereafter, the virus commandeer the cell to obey instructions written in its genome and make copies of itself, using energy and resources of the cell. The sickened cell burst open releasing virus particles, which infect other cells. The above process, known as the lytic pathway of viral reproduction, kills the host cell. Sometimes virus inside the cell, replicate when the cell divides, via so-called lysogenic mode of reproduction. Lysogenic reproduction helps virus to evade host immunity and prolong the infection. Coronavirus is lytic, whereas the HIV virus switches from one mode to the other.
Virus variations: the ability viruses to undergo genetic changes
The invasive potential of RNA viruses rests largely on their inherent flair to undergo genetic changes frequently to exploit Darwinism. When a RNA virus replicate errors would occur in the sequence of the nucleotide bases A, C.G and U. For example the sequence AACU may be wrongly copied as AACG. Such accidental changes or mutations alter the character of the virus progeny. Often the mutations turn out be ineffective or deleterious to survival of the virus; but occasionally, the variant (one produced by mutation) may acquire qualities more favorable for its proliferation, such as resistance to host immunity or faster transmission. The probability of a mutation in a RNA virus per replication exceed that of a host organism million fold. Furthermore, viruses replicates at rates orders of magnitude faster than the host and their numbers are astronomically larger. Thus in the case of RNA viruses the likelihood of emergence of variants spreading faster would be significantly high. That is why in a period less than two years we have seen several potentially dangerous variants of the coronavirus. More people getting infected and longer the pandemic lasts; the chances of virus mutating to variants is higher.
Viruses also have disposition to undergo major genetic changes described as antigenic shifts. When different viruses infect the same cell, a segment of RNA from one virus could get inserted into the genome of the other as a recombination. Some viruses have more than one strands of RNA, in this situation, strands could be exchanged by a process known as re-assortment. Spanish flu virus is believed to have originated by re-assortments involving viruses from avian, swine and human sources.
When we allow opportunities for the virus to breed; we are at the risk of being confronted by new mutant variants or antigenically shifted strains that spread even faster. The strategy a virus adopts to achieve this objective may inadvertently turn out be a more virulent attack that escalates the death toll. Virus gains no benefit by being virulent.
Host congregation and overpopulation
Despite the advantage of fast mutability (Darwinian superiority), viruses predisposes a frailty. They being delicate and minute; cannot survive outside host for very long; without getting denatured by heat, sunlight and other environmental conditions. As such, viruses find hard to move from one host to another, unless the hosts position close proximity to each other.
If a kind of animals or plants dominate segregating into densely populated colonies, at the expense of common resources to be shared by other species; viruses invariably gain access to the system, sometime or other, creating an epidemic or pandemic! The result would be limitation of the population, but not up to the point of extinction; because when the susceptible host population thins out as a result of immunity and deaths, the virus stops spreading. In the vacant niches opened – up, other varieties of plants and animal flourish. Even the original affected species, may regain strength and reappear. Thus far, because of ingenuity, humans have succeeded in evading the eventuality of this phenomenon, but for how long?
From prehistoric to modern times, pandemics have abetted the diversity of life and paved way for social reforms. Similarly, past extinction events had eventually made the world of flora and fauna more diverse and sustainable.
History tells when destructive calamities end or made to retract; new opportunities surface – communities of organisms have progressed that way.
Extinctions and aftermath
Fossil records reveal life on earth suffered several mass extinctions wiping out a large percentage of plants and animals in a short time. Planetological evidence points to the conclusion; volcanic eruptions, climate change and an asteroid impact as the causes of the major destructions. In between mass extinctions there had also been more frequent minor ones indicative of disappearance or marked decline of the population of some species. Arguments have presented to explain these endangerments to as viral pandemics.
Mass extinctions events initially interrupted life drastically curtailing the diversity. Amazingly habitats recovered – diversity regained or increased beyond the original index.
The Permian- Triassic extinction originating from catastrophic volcanic eruptions in Siberia 252 million years ago, killed over 90 and 70 percent of marine and land animals. In about six million years; biodiversity regained, new species adopting more advanced life styles appeared.
The extinction that changed the world for ever was caused by impact of an asteroid 66 million years ago. Gigantic dinosaurs who dominated the world for millennia vanished leading the way for mammals to takeover. Perhaps viruses helped our ancestor mammalians to establish by killing medium size reptiles survived the asteroid catastrophe, but immunocompromised by food shortage – opening the way for humans to evolve. Brain became more important than the body size and one species dominated the biosphere. Human innovation succeeded in resisting natural forces limiting the undue expansion of the species. They controlled illnesses, cultivated crops on large scale, using science based techniques. However, maintaining a population continuing to increase, present new challenges; because we are getting vulnerable to the same natural predicaments which limited the growth of animal populations.
In between major extinctions arising from environmental calamities, there were more frequent disappearances of many species. When animals and plants overpopulate, viruses intervene to bring forth pandemics, limiting the population. Are we approaching a similar scenario?
Emerging zoonotic diseases and future pandemics
Everyone knows COVID-19 is caused by an agent termed a virus. Viruses are all over latently hiding in the bodies of animals and humans. Infrequently, dependent on environmental conditions, a virus from an animal could move to a human, get adapted to the new host and cause an epidemic or a pandemic. Almost all previous viral epidemics and pandemics including measles, rubella, smallpox, Spanish flu initially surfaced in this manner are said to zoonotic in origin.
Zoonotic diseases or zoonoses reached epidemic proportions when humans segregated into settlements, as viruses spread when hosts live close together. Settlers domesticated animals; close contact transferred pathogens from animals to humans. Measles is believed be the dog distemper virus adapted to humans and Spanish flu a zoonosis associated with pigs and birds.
Following industrialisation and multiplication of urban localities of increasing population density, more zoonotic diseases turned into epidemics. Polio has been an ancient disease but epidemics did not occur until early 20th century. Dengue spread all over tropics; beginning late 1960s, when urbanisation congregated people into cities.
Dengue, chikungunya, zika and other existing or emerging insect vector mediated viral infections poses a severe threat for of the following reason. Insects are a very successful species. They have stubbornly survived all mass extinctions, since they evolved 500 million years ago. No other widespread species has been exposed to viruses for so long and as such they have acquired strong innate immunity to viruses. Therefore, they can harbor viruses asymptomatically, without getting manifestly sick and transfer the virus to vulnerable humans and animals.
Recently, within a short span of time, a number of zoonotic diseases have emerged; Ebola, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), Avian flu (H5N1), Zika, Nipah and lately COVID- 19 . When greedy humans encroach habitats occupied by animals or spoil the environment by their activities; wild life has no alternative than to move closer to humans. The viruses causing the diseases; SARS, MERS, Nipah and COVID -19 are believed to have disseminated from bats, when their habitats got disturbed. Rearing farm animals in torturous congested conditions, create situations conducive for them to catch infections of wild species and transfer them to humans after genetic modifications. Loss of biodiversity create conditions favorable for zoonotic disease to emerge and turn into epidemics for pandemics.
So many species of animals and have gone extinct because of anthropogenic activities and millions are threatened. On this scale, viruses have not exterminated a single species – they only limit unwarranted expansion of species. We are accustomed to think that the non-living senseless virus is the culprit; when the real cause has been our behavior.
In 1901 the French Chemist Le Chatelier enunciated a principle, which goes after his name. Le Chatelier’s principle states “If a system is stressed, the system reacts in such a way to relieve the stress “. If the system is taken as the collection of flora and fauna of the biosphere and stress as human activities endangering the biosphere; it follows from the principle that natural forces in the biosphere will react to human activities. The present pandemic and emerging zoonotic diseases are example of such reactions.
World needs to be prepared to counter pandemics. Swift action once they emerge would not solve the problem as the virus may propagate and mutate much faster than our response. Vaccines are proven to be effective. Understanding required to design vaccines and installing manufacturing plants and rolling inoculations to the global population takes years. The real offender that bring forth pandemics is our behavior. Environmental destruction, occupation of the habitats of wild species and unwarranted congregation at all levels of association, prompts pandemics to emerge and propagate. The other factor is ignorance and irrationality of thought, continuing to prevail – many advocate myth and pseudoscience. The pandemic is a signal that humanity needs to adjust and change collectively for betterment.
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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