Features
Fishing expeditions at Yan Oya
by Junglewalla
(continued from last week)
My fishing experiences at Yan Oya (the village is called Kallarawa, but it is a collection of fishing wadiyas or huts) were in the company of William Nanayakkara, whom I have referred to earlier. My frequent angling companions at Yan Oya were Lionel Gooneratne, and two other close friends. We used to camp on a beautiful tract of land that belongs to me at the mouth of the Yan Oya.
On an earlier trip, William Nanayakkara while laying a net inside the Yan Oya caught and landed a huge female sawfish (Pristis microdon; dhathi mora S) about 10 feet in length. According to William, substantiated by subsequent information gathered by me, the sawfish come from the ocean’s deep into fresh water to breed.
This is also mentioned by Munro (1955); where he gives the length attained by the sawfish as being up to 15 feet. The specimen netted by William was a female, as proved by the baby sawfish that were visible when the fish was opened up. It would appear that the sawfish, like all sharks and rays, is viviparous. On a subsequent trip up the Kumbukkan Oya in Kumuna, about five miles upstream from the mouth, I observed in a deep and clear pool of absolutely fresh water, a couple of baby sawfish each about a foot long. They were miniature replicas in every way of the adult and complete with saw beak. This would appear to confirm that the sawfish also breed in fresh water, and the juveniles spend at least some part of their life there, somewhat like the salmon of western waters.
On my trips I have seen two large sawfish, eight to 10 feet in length, which had been hooked and landed by a hand- line (yotha) using a dead fish as bait. One was high up the Mahaweli river near the ferry (as it then was) on the Kantalai – Allai road approximately 20 miles from the estuary mouth. The other was about four miles up the Walawe Ganga at Ambalantota. Both anglers who had landed these fish stated that when the trace got entangled in the saw teeth of the fish’s beak, it became virtually paralysed and was drawn in without much of a fight.
My friend, Lionel Goonaratne on a trip with me caught an interesting fish at Yan Oya on an artificial bait (a red and white lipped Abu Hi Lo plug). It was a black-tipped reef shark (Eulamia spallanzani) abut 60 pounds in weight. It is generally thought that sharks are predators who hunt by scent and that their eye-sight is extremely poor. Here, however, was a case where the shark attacked an artificial bait that had no scent. I too have had a similar experience, elsewhere on the east coast, of hooking and landing a same sized black- tipped reef shark on an artificial plug bait.
I had one more interesting experience at Yan Oya worth recounting. On one of my trips a huge whale shark, (Rhincodon typus; mini muthu mora S) beached itself on the shore. The whale shark which is perhaps the largest known fish and a plankton feeder, had been encircled accidentally by the fishermen in one of their nets out at sea, but had subsequently been freed from the net (as I found out later); however the disoriented fish had swum straight to shore and beached itself.
I remember the fish was close to 20 feet in length (estimated according to the size of a mechanized fishing boat nearby), about five feet high and must have weighed an enormous amount.
Despite valiant efforts by the entire fishing village, the fish could not be pushed out to deep water, and the next day it died. The efforts of the villagers to try and save the fish did strike me then as strange, as the normal reaction of a professional fisherman is to treat any such fresh fish as bounty from heaven, and use it for food and for sale either in fresh or dried form. However, on the death of the fish I was told by William that the flesh could not be eaten or used even as dry fish as it would “dissolve like water”; and the entire village spent the whole day cutting it into sections and carting it off into the neighbouring scrub jungles for burial, so that the beach would not be polluted by the putrifying fish. This is the only occasion on which I found fisher folk not eating a fish that was non-toxic, and the reason given by William and the professional fisherfolk was unusual and perhaps merits further investigation. It certainly seemed an absolute waste of a stupendous quantity of protein to bury the fish!
Dealing with my camping days at Yan Oya, a bit of local history of interest would be worth relating. Upstream from the estuary mouth of the Yan Oya, about two miles up, near the village of Tiriyai, were the ruins of perhaps the most ancient Buddhist dagoba in the whole of Sri Lanka, and perhaps in the entire world. I came across it on one of my early camping trips to Yan Oya, in the early 1960s, when I chanced upon a Buddhist priest and his acolyte trudging on a jungle track, returning to the shrine. They were given a lift in the jeep to the temple, where in the midst of the wilderness the priest was trying to restore some semblance of a shrine at the ruined dagoba.
The priest related to me that this was an ancient shrine named Giri Handu Saya, where a hair relic of the Buddha obtained during his lifetime was enshrined. There was a massive stone tablet with some ancient inscriptions on it near the dagoba which had the remains of an almost completely preserved wata dage around it – almost as well preserved as the more famous one at Medirigiriya.
The story related by the priest, which he claimed was borne out by the inscriptions, was that immediately after the Buddha attained enlightenment he was going through a period of fasting, when there chanced upon him in the forests in India two merchant traders named Thapassu and Bhalluka. The Buddha preached to them and they were so impressed by his discourse that they had asked for a memento of their meeting with him. The Buddha is supposed to have cut off a lock of his hair and given it to these merchants who were on their way to Lanka for trade. The merchants had apparently landed at the harbour at Kallarawa, at the mouth of the Yan Oya (also called Gal Waraya). The local king had also been so impressed by the account related by them of their meeting with the Buddha that the hair relic (khesha dhatu) was enshrined in the dagoba that the king constructed.
The entire dagoba was restored and even electric power was drawn to it during the premiership of Mr. Dudley Senanayake, after which the author again paid a visit to the shrine with some friends. Today, however, since the Tiriyai area is riddled with terrorist activity, it is unlikely that any priest is living there and the shrine would probably be in a state of neglect and decay.
I am indebted to Dr. R Ratnapala for having drawn my attention to the fact that the ancient shrine of Thiriyai has been fully researched and the ancient inscription translated (Paranavitarna, 1936). This account substantially tallies with that given by the custodian priest of the shrine, except for minor details, particularly in relation to how the dagoba came to be constructed.
I was also informed by Dr. Ratnapala that there is reference to the inscription at Thiriyai by Rahula (1956), where reference is made to Thapassu and Bhalluka as being those who offered the first meal to the Buddha after his period of fasting immediately after attaining enlightenment.
Ilangathurai Mohathuvaram
At the mouth of the Ullakelle lagoon on the banks of which the ancient Buddhist temple of Seruwila is situated, is a place of considerable interest. It was accessible by a cart or jeep track over soft dune sand north of the Verugal estuary. The access was very difficult in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The villagers of the hamlet at the estuary mouth were fishermen, coast Veddhas by descent, speaking a peculiar patois of Tamil according to William of Yan Oya and Raju of Komari, friends of mine who accompanied me there. The fishing at the estuary was magnificent as it was a remote and unspoilt place.
Another interesting feature is that on the northern bank of the estuary there is a desolate stretch of scrub that leads to a cluster of fishermen’s huts at a place called Uppural. Close to this area and slightly inland from the seashore are the signs of ancient iron ore smelting, with piles of slag emerging from the sand dunes. The richness of this area in iron ore was confirmed by the Ministry of Industries under Mr. T B Subasinghe. He had a study done to assess the mineral resources in that area, according to reports in the newspapers of that time.
Verugal and crocodiles
The estuary just south of Ilangathurai is Verugal, which is one of the two main mouths of the Mahaweli Ganga, the other and so-called chief mouth being Genge. The Verugal mouth or rather mouths, as there are two openings, are both scenic and prolific in fish, but unfortunately are also densely populated by some of the biggest and most dangerous man-eating crocodiles in the whole of Sri Lanka.. These are the estuarine or salt water crocodiles , namely the hali kimbula (Crocodilus porosus). I have on occasions seen large specimens estimated at well over 15 feet in length, silhouetted in the rising waves out at sea near the estuary mouth. Length apart, the girth of these reptiles is massive. The Verugal villagers speak of numerous victims being taken by these crocodiles both at the mouth and up the river, at the ferry and elsewhere.
I was told by the fishermen camped in their wadiyes at the small mouth of the Verugal river (situated near Kathaveli on the East coast) of a particularly horrifying fatal attack by a crocodile that had taken place a short while before my first visit there in the early 1960’s. The Verugal estuary was a beautiful yet sinister place. On one bank there was beautiful green grass, while the other bank was overgrown with dense mangroves. At the mouth itself was a deep pool.
One evening after the day’s fishing the young son of the owner of a madal or large fishing net, with some fishermen who were friends, went for his customary bath at the river mouth, when a huge crocodile grabbed him, and according to the account, tossed the shrieking victim out of the water in order to secure a better grip, and dived into the river, never to be seen again. The fishermen of the wadiya combed the entire area for several days, but never came across the victim. When I went to the Verugal on that occasion, the fishermen had still not recovered from their shock. They only bathed with buckets of water drawn from the river, and they warned me to be careful about getting into the water to cast the artificial bait.
On one occasion when I visited Verugal on a fishing trip my boatman, a villager named Muthucumaru, flatly refused to put his canoe into the river as he had still not recovered from a frightening experience the previous evening. An outsize crocodile had taken the outrigger of his slightly built canoe (kalapu oruwa) in its jaws and tried to topple it and dislodge Muthucumaru into the water. Fortunately, the crocodile’s attempt at attacking his canoe had driven it to the shore. Muthucumaru had then leapt out and fled to the fishing wadiyas (huts) on the shore to escape the monster.
On a subsequent occasion when I went up to Verugal, there was consternation amongst the people at the ferry and the boutique on the river bank. It would appear that the previous day a bus, which had to cross the river, had been put on to the ferry. Until the ferryman came down, the bus conductor had sat on the ramp and placed his legs in the water to wash off some mud. He had, according to the eyewitnesses, been gripping the chain of the ferry ramp to keep his balance, when a huge crocodile had grabbed him by the legs and despite the man’s frenzied efforts to keep his grip on the chain, had carried him off, never to be seen again.
Most of the east coast crocodiles swim out to the open sea and travel from estuary mouth to estuary mouth, hugging the shoreline a few hundred yards beyond the waves.
One huge estuarine crocodile was reputed to travel from the mouth of the Heda Oya to the estuary at Kumana visiting intermediate estuaries on the way, a distance of about 25 miles. I spotted this crocodile once at the mouth of the Heda Oya, south of Arugam Bay when in the company of Peter Jayawardena, then Game Ranger at Lahugala. He told me that it was one of the largest crocodiles he had ever seen – and Peter having been in the Wildlife Department since its inception must have seen a good many. -,
This particular crocodile, which was known for its outstanding size, had been spotted by the Panama villagers on one of its periodic visits up the Wila Oya. It was credited by them with having then taken a fisherman who had been sleeping on a whaleback rock which was sloping into a deep pool some distance upstream from the estuary mouth. This fisherman who had been one of my angling companions, was in the habit of fishing for estuary perch (L calcarifer; modha S; koduwa T) at this particular pool throughout the night and sleeping on this sloping rock.
One morning the villagers had found his scanty belongings on the rock, but the man was missing. The villagers believed that this huge crocodile had clambered up the rock and taken its victim whilst he was asleep. According to accounts read by me about the Indonesian species of estuarine crocodile (the same Crocodilus porosus), they attain an enormous size and travel across the high seas from island to island in Indonesia and even attack fishing canoes they encounter.
It is of interest that in recent times attacks on humans by crocodiles have become more widespread with repeated newspaper accounts of fatalities being reported from Bundala, Walawe Ganga, Nilwala Ganga, Polathu Modera (all in the South) and even from rivulets that empty into the Bolgoda lake on the outskirts of Colombo. While all the southern rivers and lagoons had substantial populations of crocodiles in the 1960’s, inquiries from local villagers from the area did not reveal such frequent attacks taking place then as compared to more recent times. Different theories have been advanced to explain attacks. These range from scarcity of food for crocodiles as a result of over-fishing by man to expansion of human population bringing it into pressing contact with crocodile habitats. The truth is probably a combination of the two plus more aggressive newspaper reporting which is a feature of life today.
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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