Features
Is Singapore a role model we must emulate?
By Susirith Mendis
(susmend2610@gmail.com)
I was prompted to write this post after I read the article in ‘The Island’ newspaper titled “The MPH Formula of Singapore” on 25th April 2022, by an anonymous author.
For the past few decades, especially since 1977, when JRJ said that he would make Sri Lanka a ‘Singapore’, this comparison between Sri Lanka and Singapore had been bandied about, ad nauseum. So many have been eulogising Lee Kuan Yew (LKY) and the ‘Singapore miracle’ that he created from next to nothing. Singapore is the role model that is being held up for us to emulate.
It was said in that article, that “the need of the hour for Sri Lanka” is the ‘MPH Formula’ – Meritocracy, Pragmatism and Honesty – of Singapore; that it is the magic formula that made Singapore what it is. Nobody will disagree that the ‘MPH Formula’ is necessary for good governance and economic development of any country. But do we need to take Singapore as a role model for such governance?
Is this formula a true representation of Singaporean governance? Or, is this a half-truth with a dark underbelly deliberately withheld in the uninformed enthusiasm (or desperation) to seek role models? Why not look closer for the real truth? Why not be both truthful and realistic and call Singapore’s magic formula MPHD or MPHA? Why not add the words dictatorship or autocracy to it?
Take an unblinkered closer look at the economic miracles of the ‘Four Asian Tigers’ – Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Between the early 1960s and 1990s, they underwent rapid industrialisation and maintained exceptionally high growth rates. They were called ‘The Asian Miracles’. If you wish, you can add the other Asian ‘miracles’ to this list – Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.
There is a common thread that runs through all these ‘miracles’ (perhaps with the exception of the then British-ruled Hong Kong) – political repression and authoritarianism. Since I do not wish to make this too lengthy an article, I will limit myself to who LKY really was, and how his ‘Singapore Miracle’ came into being.
1. Repression by LKY
Let us begin with a quote from the horse’s mouth:
“I am often accused of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn’t be here today. And I say without the slightest remorse that we wouldn’t be here, we would not have made economic progress, if we had not intervened on very personal matters – who your neighbour is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think.”
(Lee Kuan Yew – The Straits Times, April 20, 1987)
LKY said the following to one of the “silver-tongued, but more principled member of the Opposition” in independent Singapore’s first parliament, J.B. Jeyaretnam:
“If you are a troublemaker … it’s our job to politically destroy you. Put it this way. As long as J.B. Jeyaretnam stands for what he stands for – a thoroughly destructive force – we will knock him. Everybody knows that in my bag I have a hatchet, and a very sharp one.”
The New York Times reported on Nov. 16, 1986, that Mr. J.B. Jeyaretnam, a Tamil of Sri Lankan descent, who was the leader of Singapore’s parliamentary opposition was sentenced to a token month in prison and stripped of his seat in the country’s legislature. At that time, LKY’s People’s Action Party (PAP) held 77 of the 79 seats in Parliament. The opposition, thereby, was reduced to just one MP. Has anybody wondered why the PAP has held power continuously since 1959 – even before Singapore’s independence from Malaya? If not, why not?
With incredibly petty vindictiveness, LKY’s government pursued Chee Soon Juan, who was fired in 1993 from his teaching job at the National University of Singapore after he had joined an Opposition party, and who was repeatedly imprisoned and bankrupted simply for joining an Opposition party and for holding small street demonstrations to air criticisms that state-controlled media wouldn’t publish. Since 2002, he had been repeatedly arrested and imprisoned for organising a rally to promote workers’ rights; he has regularly faced legal charges for speaking out about undemocratic practices in Singapore in the past and has twice been imprisoned for speaking in public without a permit; and fined S$20,000 (US$15,720) for “making an address in a public place without a license”.
Chee Soon Juan was the secretary-general of the Opposition Singapore Democratic Party (SDP). He has been convicted four times, in each case for speaking in a public area with street vendors for four to five minutes about upcoming elections ultimately held in May 2006. The courts convicted Chee of violating the Public Entertainments and Meetings Act (PEMA), which provides that “any person who provides … any public entertainment without a license under this Act, shall be guilty of an offense and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $10,000.”
Thor Halvorssen, President of the Human Rights Foundation, published an open letter to LKY’s son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, noting that, “In the last 20 years he (Dr. Chee) has been jailed for more than 130 days on charges including contempt of Parliament, speaking in public without a permit, selling books improperly, and attempting to leave the country without a permit. Today, your government prevents Dr. Chee from leaving Singapore because of his bankrupt status … It is our considered judgment that having already persecuted, prosecuted, bankrupted and silenced Dr. Chee inside Singapore, you now wish to render him silent beyond your own borders.”
Another one-time founding father of Singapore, its former Solicitor General Francis Seow, had to flee the country after declaring that its Law Society, which he headed, could comment critically on government legislation. Seow was arrested and detained for 72 days under Singapore’s Internal Security Act on allegations that he had received funds from the United States to enter Opposition politics. Seow lives in exile in Massachusetts, where he has been a fellow at the East Asian Legal Studies Programme and the Human Rights Programme at Harvard Law School.
Here is the first two paragraphs of the foreword to the second edition of the Amnesty International Report on Singapore in 1978:
“The first edition of Amnesty International’s Briefing on Singapore was published in February 1976. Since then, the Singapore Government has taken a series of actions which have led to serious violations of human rights. More men and women whom the government claim are members of or sympathizers with some branch or satellite organia0stion of the illegal Communist Party of Malaya have been arrested.
However, no formal charges have been brought against them and there is no opportunity to test the government’s allegations in court. These people can be imprisoned indefinitely without charge or trial by government order under the Internal Security Act. Those arrested in 1976-77 include people who have been outspoken in their criticism of the Singapore Government.
Former political detainees, some of whom spent up to 10 years in prison without trial in the 1960s, have been arbitrarily re-arrested and once again face indefinite detention without trial.
An increasing number of political detainees have made “confessions” on the State-run television and in the government-supervised press. Such “confessions”, which are usually required as a pre-condition for release, contain claims relating to allegations that they have engaged in illegal and subversive activities, but their statements are not tested in open court according to generally accepted legal practce. The “confessions” often implicate friends and associates of the detainee and are used by the government as a pretext to arrest these people.
There is growing concern, both in Singapore and abroad, at the increasing use of public “confession” to justify the arrest and imprisonment of men and women without any involvement of judicial process.”
2. Racism of LKY
Too often, Singapore is held up as the epitome of racial equality and ethnic harmony. Let us just quote LKY himself to disabuse you of that notion about Singapore.
“Now if democracy will not work for the Russians, a white Christian people, can we assume that it will naturally work with Asians?” he asked on May 9, 1991, at a symposium sponsored by the large Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun.
Race riots among Chinese, Indian and Muslim Malay residents of Singapore in the 1950s had taught LKY to impose “harmony” through strict allocations of resources and services along race lines: All Singaporeans carry ethnic identity cards. A policeman or government official examining the ID of a Singaporean will immediately know the race/ethnicity of that person.
Here is more from LKY:
“The Bell curve is a fact of life. The blacks on average score 85 per cent on IQ and it is accurate, nothing to do with culture. The whites score on average 100. Asians score more … the Bell curve authors put it at least 10 points higher. These are realities that, if you do not accept, will lead to frustration because you will be spending money on wrong assumptions and the results cannot follow.” (LKY in 1997, in an interview for the book ‘Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas’).
“If I tell Singaporeans – we are all equal regardless of race, language, religion, culture, then they will say, ‘Look, I’m doing poorly. You are responsible.’ But I can show that from British times, certain groups have always done poorly, in mathematics and in science. But I’m not God, I can’t change you …” (in LKY’s book ‘Success Stories’ – 2002).
Was LKY endorsing or recommending eugenics?
“People get educated, the bright ones rise, they marry equally well-educated spouses. The result is their children are smarter than those who are gardeners. Not that all the children of gardeners are duds. Occasionally two grey horses produce a white horse but very few. If you have two white horses, the chances are you breed white horses. It’s seldom spoken publicly because those who are NOT white horses say, ‘You’re degrading me’. But it’s a fact of life. You get a good mare, you don’t want a dud stallion to breed with your good mare. You get a poor foal. Your mental capacity and your EQ and the rest of you, 70 to 80% is genetic.” (in LKY’s book ‘Hard Truths’(2011)
(For more, read Jim Sleeper’s article ‘Lee Kuan Yew’s hard truths’ in ‘Open Democracy’).
3. Singapore’s migrant underclass
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” wrote George Orwell in ‘Animal Farm’. The father of Singapore and its present leaders obviously seem to agree with this jocular Orwellian understatement.
The horrible plight of the Singaporean migrant underclass was exposed to the whole world when Covid-19 hit Singapore.
As the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases skyrocketed in migrant worker dormitories—where men from India, Bangladesh, and China live in cramped rooms of about 12 to 20 persons, making social distancing impossible – the government adopted a racist strategy of treating the situation as one of “two separate infections,” one affecting migrant workers in dormitories and another circulating within “our own community” in Singapore, as relayed by National Development Minister Lawrence Wong. (FP, May 6th 2020)
Purpose-built and factory-converted dormitories that housed 323,000 migrant men were an epicentre of the pandemic. Singapore has 1,427,500 migrant workers comprising 38% of its labour force. The prejudices and negative attitudes against migrant workers are well-documented in ‘Research Brief’, a document by the UN WOMEN of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in December 2020. The public (Singaporean citizens) attitudes to, and perceptions of, migrant workers have deteriorated since the previous study done in 2010, they claim. A significant percentage of Singaporean citizens (36%) are of the view that migrant workers should not be given equal pay for equal work; should not receive same work; and should not be able to join unions.
An article published by the Asia Pacific Migration Network of the ILO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok, Thailand, notes that foreign workers in Singapore work long hours for low pay in frequently hazardous conditions and are often abused by employers and labour contractors and “many have to endure abuse, discrimination and violations of their rights but few can obtain legal redress.”
With a total population of approx. 5.82 million (2022), roughly 1.43 million people in Singapore are in the foreign work force. Non-citizens now comprise 36% of the population compared with 14% in 1990. Singapore, in too many ways is a “fiefdom”; raising concerns that the country is starting to resemble the oil-rich Gulf sheikhdoms in which low-paid overseas workers allow citizens to enjoy lives of ease.
In terms of undemocratic governance, inbuilt racism, enforced ethnic harmony and migrant forced-labour, Sri Lanka is comparatively still a haven compared with Singapore. The worst of our good governance parameters have not exceeded those that have been prevalent for decades of LKY rule. What we have instead is chronic economic underdevelopment – the scourge of many developing third world democracies.
When those who should know better, tell us that Singapore should be our ‘role model’, are they telling us to follow the despotism of LKY? Were we not shocked when an uninformed priest (Anunayake of the Asgiriya Chapter, Venduruwe Upali) asked Gotabhaya Rajapakse – Presidential candidate – to become a Hitler? It seems, from some ‘liberal’ and ‘democratic’ voices we have heard, that he seemed to have faulted on the name. Instead, if he had said “be like LKY” would our ‘Singapore-Model’ torch-bearers have said that anything was amiss? That we do not want the autocracy of LKY?
What we are being told by these same voices is that the final economic outcomes outweigh the democratic freedoms we treasure. A ‘miracle’ like Singapore (or South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia or Indonesia) is what counts and not its record of political repression. The oxymoronic expression ‘benevolent dictator’ is often in convenient usage and now part of the political lexicon. LKY is said to be one such rare national leader. The venerable Asgiriya Anunayake must have had a ‘benevolent dictator’ in mind when he made the unforgivable faux pas.
Or are we advocating what I mentioned at the outset – MPHD or MPHA? That dictatorship, autocracy and repression is OK if meritocracy, pragmatism and honesty is also practiced in governance? That what we need is development at any cost to individual freedoms? That democracy and civic freedoms can be sacrificed at the altar of the creation of an affluent state? That repression is OK if we are given adequate food and fuel?
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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