JVP claims Energy Minister Gammanpila misled Parliament on Trinco oil tanks

By Saman Indrajith

The JVP yesterday in Parliament accused Energy Minister Udaya Gammanpila of misleading the House by claiming that Trincomalee Oil Tanks had been handed over to India under the Indo-Lanka Agreement.

JVP MP Vijitha Herath said that it was so regrettable that the Energy Minister was claiming that the oil tanks had been handed over to India completely when even the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) was claiming that they did not have the legal ownership to the oil tanks.

MP Herath asked the government to reveal whether the oil tanks would be handed over to India by the incumbent government.

MP Herath said Lanka IOC’s Managing Director Sham Bora had written to the Attorney General in Sri Lanka in 2017 requesting him to take steps to hand over the legal ownership of the oil tanks saying that they could not develop the oil tanks without legal ownership. The then Petroleum Minister Arjuna Ranatunga had obtained Cabinet approval for handing over the oil tanks to India but no agreement had been signed to that effect, Herath said.

“Had the oil tanks been handed over to India, as claimed by Minister Gammanpila, why did then Minister Ranatunga seek Cabinet approval to hand them over?” MP Herath queried.

“It is unbecoming of a minister to say that all the 100 oil tanks have been handed over to India. Minister Gammanpila should correct his statement without misleading the country.”

The MP said it was true that the Sri Lankan government had agreed to develop the oil tanks jointly with India and that letters had been exchanged between J.R. Jayewardene and Rajiv Gandhi on this matter and added that however, no legal agreement had been signed up to now.

“India wanted to include such a condition in the Indo-Lanka agreement as J.R. was planning to give the oil tanks to the US,” he said.

MP Herath said a permit had been issued to IOC to use oil tanks in 2003 by the committee appointed through a special Act in 2003. It not a legal agreement to hand over the ownership of the oil tanks, he said.

“According to the permit, a lease agreement should have been signed with the IOC after six months. However, no such agreement was signed so far. In that context, the IOC has no legal ownership of the oil tanks,” he said.