ECT and PM’s assurance

Thursday 7th January 2021

Port workers protesting against what they call a proposed joint venture between Sri Lanka and an Indian company to operate the East Container Terminal (ECT) of the Colombo Port have succeeded in making the government beat a hasty retreat. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday told Parliament the government had not decided to hand over the ECT, a part of it, or its management to a foreign company. He said so in answer to a question raised by Jathika Jana Balavegaya MP and JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake.

The SLPP is apparently divided on the ECT issue; not all its grandees speak with one voice thereon. Its founder and chief strategist, Basil Rajapaksa, expressed a different view in an interview with Hiru TV, the other day. He said his personal view was that there was nothing wrong with the participation of foreign investors in such projects. If he had been the President, he would have built more ports around the country and invited reputed foreign ventures to invest in them, he said smilingly, noting that building a port was one thing but running it profitably was another. He cited the Hambantota Port as an example.

The Colombo Port is vastly different from the Hambantota Port in that it already attracts a large number of ships and earns profits. In fact, its full potential has not yet been fully tapped. The ECT, if operated efficiently, will help increase container traffic to Colombo. Even the Hambantota Port could have been turned around if a serious attempt had been made, given the sheer number of ships that sail past it daily, some experts have argued.

It looks as if the government, already fighting on several fronts, did not want another mega problem to contend with. A strike or a ca’canny crippling the Colombo Port is the last thing it wants at this juncture due to the precarious economic situation the country finds itself in. Having sunk their political differences, the port workers are threatening a protracted trade union battle to defeat an alleged attempt by the government to partner with a foreign company to operate the ECT; it will be political suicide for the government to provoke them into a strike.

The yahapalana government blundered by leasing out the Hambantota Port to China for 99 years, and offering the ECT to India and Japan. The SJB politicians who were in the yahapalana regime, and the JVP, which wielded considerable influence on that administration, are now asking the present dispensation to run the ECT without a foreign partnership! If only they had tried to prevent the handover of the Hambantota Port to China and protested when their government offered the ECT to India and Japan.

Prime Minister Rajapaksa has not said the government will never forge a partnership with a foreign company to run the ECT; he only said the government had not decided to do so. He also tabled what he called the agreements that the yahapalana government had entered into over the ECT. Minister of Ports and Shipping Rohitha Abeygunawardena told Parliament yesterday that the yahapalana government had brought the Colombo Port to such a pass that the present administration was faced with difficulties in running it. Is the government making a case for a partnership with a foreign invester to operate the ECT?

It has been reported that Minister Abeygunawardena recently presented a Cabinet paper, seeking approval for a partnership with India’s Adani Group to operate the ECT. Will the government provide an explanation as regards the aforesaid Cabinet paper, which caused the warring port workers to harden their stance?

It is not only the prospect of earning foreign exchange that governments must take into consideration when taking decisions concerning the Colombo Port; there are other factors such as the power play by some countries vying for dominance in the Indian Ocean. China has got more than a foothold here, and its rivals are trying to do likewise to further their geo-strategic interests. Everything possible must be done to prevent the Colombo Port from becoming a playground for competing foreign powers.

The SLPP gave an assurance to the port workers, who resorted to trade union action, before the last general election, that the ECT would be run as a state venture. Workers reposed their trust in PM Rajapaksa and called off the strike. One can only hope that the government will not adopt Machiavellian tactics, plunging the Colombo Port into chaos.