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Dinner with daddy: The Motwani dinner table with Kewal, Clara and two daughters
Excerpted from Chosen Ground: The Clara Motwani Saga by Goolbai Gunasekera
One thing I can say about life with my parents is that it was never dull. One parent was a school Principal and the other a Professor, and their united efforts ensured that every shining moment of the day was gainfully employed by their two daughters in learning something. This fact alone made for activity, if not for thrills or excitement.Father had a thing about dinner time conversation.
“Food digests better when we talk of soothing subjects,” he would decree, launching into a debate with Mother about the state of America’s foreign affairs. Mother, being American, and having lived out of the USA from the time of her marriage, was always up to date on what American Presidents were doing. America was the ultimate to her in just about everything, and it was a constant joy to her irreverent family to needle her on the subject whenever possible. She had a low tolerance for criticism of her motherland.
Su and I took sides indiscriminately, and a lively evening was had by all. I don’t know what all this argument did to our digestions, but obviously we flourished. Eventually my sister and I privately decided that the time had come to infuse dinner time chats with topics more to our liking. Accordingly, one night, Su led off.
“I saw a cute boy at the Barnes Place junction today,” she said brightly.
Our parents looked at her blankly. It hadn’t occurred to them that we’d ever noticed such unlikely beings as boys. We were aged thirteen and sixteen respectively, but such were the norms of the times in which we were raised.
Father slapped the table.
“Not of general interest,” he roared. “Now if Su had seen a comet passing overhead — that would be of general interest.”
“Honestly, Daddy,” I said, backing up my sibling, “our dinner conversations are so literary. Why can’t we relax?”
“I’m relaxed,” boomed Father. “Aren’t you relaxed?” he asked Mother across the table. “And what’s your problem in relaxing?”
This last was to me. Father had just read the latest Time on the Vietnam war, and was itching to get going on the subject.
“What would you two like to talk about?” Mother asked diplomatically.
Father looked frustrated, and began to fidget. Now, I’d reached the age of discretion, and hadn’t the slightest intention of revealing to my parents that Dearly Beloved (then Dearly to be Beloved) and I were having what my friends grandly termed an ‘affaire’, but which in reality was just a series of romantic phone calls usually made when everyone was out of the house. I simply smiled and let my sister carry on. She did.
“I want to know,” demanded Su, forthright to the point of lunacy, “if that cute boy I mentioned earlier can come and visit me at home. To chat about books and things,” she added hastily, seeing Father’s face begin to darken.
Mother and I watched apprehensively as his whole body seemed to swell with indignation. Mixing of the sexes was not yet allowed in the Sri Lanka of that time — and even less in sleepy Arazi, his home town, from where he had drawn his ideas on boy/girl relationships.
“Are you actually telling me you have spoken to this young ….” he paused, searching for suitable words, “this young despoiler of innocent girls, this depraved Romeo, this unethical whippersnapper, this……He was well launched.Su was not easily intimidated.
“What are you carrying on like that for?” she asked in honest bewilderment. “All my friends talk to boys at the Barnes Place corner. They cycle with us to school and then they go on to Royal … and stop kicking me, ” she added impatiently, to me.
It will be remembered that, unlike me, Su was a Bridgeteen. Following Mother’s educational theories that sisters should not attend the same school, we had been separated — though, frankly, I feel Mother might have been more concerned for the well-being of the schools rather than for the welfare of her two daughters. The vision of Su and her friends cycling up to the gates of St Bridget’s Convent in convoy, with the young stars of Royal College in attendance, quite shattered my parents.
“It’s boarding school for you, Miss,” Father roared at an indignant Su. “And don’t think I don’t mean it.”
At this point he recalled last month’s telephone bill and gave me a suspicious glare, to which I returned a perfectly bland look.
Following this incident, our parents paid Reverend Mother Superior of St. Bridget’s a visit, and if Father had had his way, one of the nuns would have been permanently stationed at an upstairs window with a telescope trained on all roads leading to the school, to ensure the future and continuing purity of the Convent’s teenage cyclists. Hearing of this exchange betwixt authority and her parents, Su groaned.
“Good grief,” she lamented. “The nuns are sleuths and bloodhounds at the best of times. They’ve got eyes at the back of their heads.”
Actually things did not turn out half as badly as she feared. One of the nuns was an American, like Mother, and she did not view the whole episode with undue alarm. She wigged Su in school.
“Enjoyed your ride to school today, my dear?” she would ask Su, when she passed in the corridor. Su would smile weakly.
“Honestly,” she fumed to me, “to think a damn dinner conversation would lead to all this. Father can carry on about world affairs all he likes. I’m not going to say one word at meal times to anyone about anything.”
Father ignored her sulks, and Su kept her vow of silence for a week. Our sire carried on his soliloquy on topics of his choosing, but the salt of his conversational meal was lacking. Without the thrust and parry of my sister’s witty questions and cheeky opinions, he found dinner time pretty damn dull. Finally, he addressed himself gruffly to his younger offspring:
“Come now, Miss Grumpy, I’ve forgiven you.”
Truth to tell, Su, who loved talking, was finding her self-imposed silence unexpectedly hard to cope with. Matters returned to normal, but Su being Su, this happy state did not long continue.
One month to the day after the previous disaster she upset the dinner equilibrium all over again.
“I want to know,” she demanded of Father, “when I can learn to ballroom dance properly.”
Mother and I froze in our seats, and watched Father turn that familiar shade of puce. He opened and shut his mouth several times.
“At thirteen?” he said in a strangled voice. It was more a statement than a question.
“At thirteen?” he bellowed again, finding his usual tonal timbre, and she wants to dance with other equally silly 13-year-olds, I suppose?”
I sat looking demure, my halo shining brightly in contrast with what I thought was Su’s less than scintillating performance. But life is so unfair. A fortnight later, my cheeky younger sister joined Frank Harrison’s School of Dancing, and went on to win the odd medal here and there too. I was speechlessly envious.
“The thing is,” she told me, “the thing is to ask Father for the impossible. Then he settles for what you really want.”
Considering Father’s views on friendship between teens of opposite sexes, he was surprisingly non-vocal when it came to marriage. Both he and Mother realized the impracticability of arranging marriages for us in India.But one story needs be told.
One day Father received an agitated letter from a wealthy Sindhi merchant who had been his playmate in the village of Arazi. The merchant’s only son (the apple of his eye) was now practicing medicine in the USA, and was refusing to marry a Sindhi girl, claiming that he was too ‘westernized’ to settle down in India with an Indian wife. He wanted to marry an American colleague – also a doctor.
“Just think, Kewal, only my foolish son would think that an American would like India,” lamented the merchant, quite forgetting that Kewal’s own wife felt quite at home in Asia.
It transpired that the wayward son would consider marrying an Indian girl if she were educated and ‘westernized’. His distraught father suddenly remembered that his boyhood friend had an American wife and also two half-American daughters. He assumed that at least one daughter must be of marriageable age, hence the letter to Father asking permission for his son to meet one of them.
Father summoned me. His success with Mother over his attempts at arranging marriages for us had so far been minimal. She had washed her hands of the whole affair, thinking Father must really be out of his mind to be doing something so uncharacteristic. Father just could not get away from Arazi influences at times. In any case, she had a pretty shrewd idea how I would react.
Clearing his throat and looking at a point over my head, Father said gruffly:
“Er, would you like to meet a nice young man when you go to University in Bombay?”
I could hardly believe my ears.
“What?”
“A doctor is looking for a wife.”
Truly, Father’s personal persuasive skills were nil. “So?”
“Well … er … would you like to meet him?”
The chance of paying Father back was too good to miss. “Daddy! Are you arranging for me to speak to a BOY?”
“Well, he is a mature and well-qualified individual. Not the sort I see hanging around near post-boxes, that your sister seems to find so exciting.”
“Daddy, are you SURE? He might have only one thing on his mind.”
(One of Father’s pet phrases at this time was: “Young men have only one thing on their minds, and that one thing is not repeatable.”)
Father knew he had to accept the wigging. He accepted our pretended shock with good grace, and told me it was entirely up to me.
In point of fact I did meet the young man in question. He took me out to dinner when I was at university in Bombay, but both of us had other romances going and marriage between us was not an option. However he has always been a convenient peg on which to hang a winning argument with my husband. During any disagreement I can always say:
“And to think I gave up a doctor for you!”
Father wrote to his friend. According to Mother, he gave his usual excuse.
“Who am I, a mere father, to know what goes on in the heads of women. Let your son marry his American. He will probably be very happy. After all – I am.”
Riot over the diet
Father’s long lecture tours distanced him from his growing family for much of the time. He was thus spared the sight and company of squealing babies, which in his eyes was all to the good. Father never learnt to carry an infant. “Squirming little creatures,” was his comment on all new borns.
Not given to panegyrics, he viewed his two daughters with a judicial eye. He seemed to regard any successes of ours as accidental and unexpected. Fortunately, Mother was the opposite. My sister Su and I grew up in an alien land, but not once did we feel anything but totally Sri Lankan. For this we had our parents to thank, for we were brought up as Sri Lankans first, and Asian/Americans as an afterthought.
Our school friends had parents who had fallen into the traditional roles of courtship and marriage. Our own parents, on the other hand, had fallen into a quite unique category. We never tired of hearing the tale. “So tell us, Daddy,” Su would say, “Tell us the story of how you proposed?”
Father loved the narrative. “What do you mean, ‘propose’?” he would ask. “Your Mother saw this superbly romantic-looking Indian and I hadn’t a chance in hell. I was at the altar before I knew it.”
Mother would sigh resignedly. She knew, and we both knew too, that the reality had been very different.
Father was 28 and Mother just 18 when they got engaged. At 19 Mother was married, and half way through her degree in Languages and Music at the University of Iowa. Just after their marriage, Father transferred from Yale in order to be near her. When the financial debacle of the Wall Street crash wiped out Father’s American bank account, it meant that our parents could not afford to live together on campus since married quarters were expensive.
Accordingly they simply pretended they were single. When Mother was awarded her degree, Father insisted that she do a Master’s in Education. “The British will go,” he predicted, “and India’s schools and colleges will need qualified Principals.”
Mother thereupon enrolled in Professor Ensign’s class and began her thesis. Professor Ensign was an avuncular type of person, and had given Father quite a lot of added correction work by way of helping him earn extra income. One morning, he called Father aside. “Kewal,” he began, “I have a young girl from Kentucky in my class who is interested in the East. I think you should meet her and tell her about India.”
Father agreed, of course, and found himself being introduced to Mother. They shook hands gravely, trying not to meet each other’s eyes. To the end of his days, Professor Ensign thought he had played Cupid. Father never enlightened him, and the story of his matchmaking success enlivened the good Professor’s dinner table for many moons after that.
Mother took me to see Professor Ensign when I was four years old, as she was back in America on furlough. He patted my head, and gave me a photograph of himself with Mother on one side of him and Father on the other. It was a picture I treasured for many years but alas, cannot trace at this moment.
“You wouldn’t be here if not for me,” he is supposed to have said to me. Mother smiled her gentle smile. “Very true,” she said, telling one of the few untruths she ever uttered.
One wonders how a bond was forged between a youngAmerican girl and an already mature Indian Doctor of Sociology. What similarities existed that resulted in this unusual yet successful partnership? Su and I would endlessly discuss the matter. Both of us expected to marry in Sri Lanka or India (which we did), and both of us wondered what it would be like if we fell in love with an American.
“You won’t have the chance,” Father told us grimly once, when Su had been foolish enough to voice her views on matrimony. “Perish the thought. You’ll marry here, and like it.”
So what was the glue that held the bond between our parents firm? Firstly, both were Theosophists. My American grandmother was so much into Theosophy that she even influenced Mother to become a vegetarian at 17. Father had been a vegetarian from birth and through Jamshed was an ardent Theosophist himself, so it does seem as though similar food habits and similar religious beliefs formed that first strong link between them. Secondly, they were both highly educated. A third factor was the difference in age between them: Father did not find it difficult to mould his young wife into his ways of thinking.
He found Su and me, his two daughters, far more of a challenge than he liked. “Where has your Mother’s gentleness gone?” he would demand, glaring at Su’s rebellious face. On principle Su objected to everything. “I’m going to eat meat the minute I marry,” she would declare. Father would blench.
“And I’ll drink, too,” she would add. He would go even paler.
“We’ve begotten a changeling,” Father would tell Mother, who would smile and tell him to bear in mind that adolescence was generally a trying time. “If those two young ingrates want to make graveyards of their stomachs, who am I, a mere Father, to stop them?” he would say plaintively, hoping Su would overhear him. “And if liquor addles their brains, it doesn’t matter. They are addled already. Curdled would be a better description,” he would add.
Father’s aversion to meat and liquor certainly led us into some strange situations. Travelling together in America had Su and me cringing in our seats at restaurants. “The steak is excellent, sir,” the waiter would say, handing Father the menu. Father felt called upon to inform the entire restaurant, of his dietary preferences.
“Not a piece of meat has ever passed my lips,” he would declare in ringing tones. “And I don’t intend to start now.”
“Perhaps a nice Dover sole, then?” the waiter would say soothingly. Father’s voice would rise several notes. “And what, pray, is the difference?” he would ask the unfortunate waiter. “They are both flesh of living creatures, are they not? Nasty bloody business, all this meat guzzling.”
Diners at other tables began to lose their appetites. Father was in full spate. “Just order, dear,” Mother would say tactfully and, truth to tell, the manager of the restaurant was by now ready to give us all a free meal just to get Father out of there. Everyone settled for omelettes and salad. Fortunately no one had yet heard of the cholesterol scare, and we must have eaten enough eggs to start a poultry farm upon our return home. Father did not think eggs violated any Brahmin laws of ethics or dietetics.
His attitude to liquor was even worse. He had dinner one night with Mr. and Mrs. Argus Tressider, American diplomats in Colombo in the 1950s. A week later, Nancy Tressider met Father again and he complimented her on her dessert.
“Oh, you liked my brandy souffle, did you?” she asked innocently, not realizing that she was virtually hitting Father in the solar plexus. He went pale, and his stomach churned. He collected Mother, and hightailed it out of there so fast she had hardly any time to make her excuses to her hostess. He went home and was sick for twenty-four hours.
“I’m poisoned, poisoned,” he groaned hollowly every few minutes. “My entire system has been polluted.” He went on a water diet of detoxification. He was a psychological mess. Nancy rang up the next day to find out how Father was getting along after his hasty exit the previous night. Mother told her the truth. “But Clara, my dear,” Nancy said, “I only used brandy flavouring for the pudding.”
Father faced our gales of glee with fortitude. He admitted shamefacedly that it was a case of mind over matter, but when the day eventually came that Su married an officer of the Indian Army and did take the occasional glass of wine, Father was genuinely upset. “Your pure bodies,” he would lament. “What a great, great pity.” I never had the courage to admit that I did likewise. “Poppycock,” Su would mutter.
But now that I am a grandmother myself, and face dietary and health problems as do we all, I wonder: did Father have a point?
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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