Features
Ministry of Lands, Irrigation, and Power
by Leelananda De Silva
I was nearing the end of my three years in Kurunegala when I received a telephone call from M. Sri Kantha, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Lands, Irrigation and Power. He said that he would like me to come to his Ministry as Assistant Secretary with immediate effect. I had known Sri Kantha from my Jaffna days and this is how things happen.
From September 1967 to September 1969 I spent two productive years at the Ministry of Lands Irrigation and Power. Sri Kantha told me that I would have a few not very heavy tasks at the core of my assignment and in addition I would be doing odd jobs that arise from time to time. My core tasks were to oversee the Forest Department, Gal oya Development Board, the State Plantations Corporation, keep an eye on the new colonization scheme in the North, Muthuiyyan kaddukulam, and Parliamentary matters relating to the Ministry. As time went on, I did many other things.
The Minister, C.P de Silva was a former civil servant with an intimate knowledge of the subjects of his Ministry. He was an expert in irrigation and land development. He knew the senior officials of his Ministry intimately. For us junior officers he was a remote figure, although I had a lot to do with him.He had entered politics as a member of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, and was one of its leading figures in the 1950s and early 1960s. Now after having crossed over from the SLFP, although he had a powerful and wide ranging Ministry in the UNP Government, he was never again the commanding politician that he once was. His parliamentary secretary (now called deputy minister) was Captain C.P.J. Senewiratne, MP for Mahiyangana. The Minister had nothing to do with him.
The Permanent Secretary told me to keep in touch with him. He was rarely in his office and he had no work in the Ministry. Once he told me that the Minister might be very important in this Ministry, but that he was more important in the party and in Parliament, having been an old UNPer, unlike the Minister.On another occasion he told me to contact the Conservator of Forests and arrange for some forest land in Mahiyangana to be released for development. He said the problem in Mahiyangana was too much forests, and too little land for people to live and I think he had a point. At that time, two thirds of Sri Lanka were forests.
M. Sri Kantha was a fine man. He was reaching the end of his career. A devout Hindu, he spent a considerable time in religious activities. He had been GA Jaffna for a long spell, and he missed Jaffna. He was the ideal foil for a mercurial Minister like C.P de Silva. I used to give Sri Kantha a lift at lunch time in my car to his residence on Norris Canal Road. Sometimes this created a problem for me, as he got held up at meetings.I remember one day that he alerted me, while going in the car, to the perils of sex in middle age. He told me that men in their late 40s and 50s should be very careful in their relations with the opposite sex. All this arose from the news of a current scandal in the Administrative Service where a very senior officer had run away with a very junior female administrator.
The man who managed the Ministry was T. Sivagnanam, Senior Assistant Secretary. He was a reclusive figure and it took a little time for me to establish friendly relations with him. Once that happened he was a warm and kind personality. He knew more about irrigation than most irrigation engineers. I worked with him closely on many issues. The Minister depended heavily on him. Later, under the UNP government after 1977, Sivagnanam distinguished himself in organizing and managing the massive Mahaweli scheme. For the sake of his children and at the end of his career he sought a posting in Washington. He was to die there a few years later. I learnt a lot from Sivagnanam. It is a great pity that this kind of public servant, who served the country without fanfare, is now forgotten.
There were other interesting personalities in the Ministry. P.U. Ratnatunga, who had been Surveyor General, came to the Ministry as Additional Secretary. This was one of the early high level appointments of technical personnel to Ministries. He was a friend and contemporary of the minister at university and a fellow mathematician.At this time the Minister, C.P. was obsessed with the LSSP which he detested (C.P. had left the SLFP in 1964 as he did not fancy working with the LSSP in the new coalition). Ratnatunga reflected to some extent this aversion of the Minister, and I remember this due to an incident which occurred relating to the appointment of an assistant secretary.
I shared a room in the old secretariat with A.G.F (Francis) Perera, an assistant secretary who had come up from the clerical service. He had been the head of the powerful Treasury “G” branch which dealt with the all-island clerical service. His great hero was Shirley Amarasinghe, his old boss at the Treasury, and Francis imitated his manners and his style. He in fact looked a bit like Shirley. We became close friends as time went on.Another person who became a friend was B.H. Hemapriya, the Press Officer. He was close to the Minister and traveled with him all over the island. He was genuinely interested in the work he did and he had great knowledge of Sri Lanka’s history, specially of its irrigation works. He worked hard to get the media interested in the issues that mattered to the Ministry.
Those days the job of a Press Officer was highly professional and Hemapriya aimed at projecting the Ministry and not the Minister. The Minister was pleased with this strategy. Hemapriya was a great friend and an honest and hard working public servant. They did not make money, and his retirement years were not easy.It is through Hemapriya that I met Manik de Silva, who was to be one of my closest friends and one of the great journalists of our time. In 1967 Manik was a young Observer reporter, covering the Ministry of Lands and constantly looking for stories. He used to come and see Hemapriya who introduced him to me.
Manik is a son of Walwin A. de Silva, a distinguished civil servant, and later politician and vice chancellor. Manik made one journalistic scoop through some information I gave him. At this time in 1968 we were living down Model Farm Road in an annexe belonging to V.C. de Silva, former Director of Public Works. We were friendly with him and his family.One day V.C told me that he had just seen the Prime Minister, Dudley Senanayake along with L.B de Silva (former Supreme Court Judge) and H.C. Gunawardane (former Permanent Secretary) and that they have been appointed as the new Salaries Commission. V.C. did not tell me to treat it as confidential news.
Those days the news of the appointment of a Salaries Commission was of enormous significance. The Press had not heard about it. So when Manik came along to see me in the Ministry I told him the news, and he had a scoop, the Observer carrying it with a banner headline. Since that time, We have kept in touch with Manik and his partner Diana Captain (of whom I shall say more later) and they have been our close friends.Manik must count as one of the great Sri Lankan editors of all time, having had a journalistic career of nearly 60 years. We are also friends with Manik’s sister, Nela, who lives in England. Her son, Ganesh Sittampalam, a mathematics prodigy, is in the Guiness Book for being the youngest mathematics graduate in the last century.One of the tasks that I found most interesting in the Ministry was one that was assigned to me by the Minister. The Committee Stage of the Budget Debate in 1968 had an extensive discussion on the Votes of the Ministry of Lands. About 40 MPs intervened, raising a large number of issues, which filled one whole Hansard.
The Minister was anxious to impress on MPs that he was open to their suggestions and criticisms. He asked me to go through the Hansard and follow up each and every issue that has been raised by an MP and to let him know what his response should be to the MP concerned. He wanted me to prepare letters to MPs which he would sign.
This was not as simple a task as I thought it would be. I took about three months to handle all these matters. Apart from consulting with the MP, I had to follow them up with the departments and officials concerned and many of them were located in the districts. Many of the observations made by MPs related to two departments – Land Commissioner’s and the Irrigation Department. The whole exercise was very rewarding as I saw at first hand the interaction between the politician and the public servant.Apart from that, one learnt about the policy implications that arise from individual cases.A fascinating task that came my way was to assist Sivagnanam in the negotiations with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on the Udawalawe project. The ADB was prepared to finance the project and sent two missions, one to do its technical feasibility and then later to negotiate financial assistance.
The technical feasibility mission was carried out by Huntings, a UK based consultancy firm. I looked after that mission from the Ministry. One of the members of that mission was R.W (Dick) Kettlewell, an agriculturalist, with long experience in the British African colonies. In the days prior to independence of Malawi, he had been Minister of Agriculture there. He had also been in Ceylon during the war.
During his visit to Ceylon and after, he became a great friend of ours. We are now friends with his son Michael, a leading Oxford surgeon, and his wife Sarah, whose brother is the Darwinian scholar, Richard Dawkins. Richard and Sarah’s mother, Jean Dawkins was born at Matara in Ceylon during the First World War and she is now nearly 100. They live in Chipping Norton near Oxford in their sprawling four hundred acre farm.
The mission that came from the ADB to negotiate financial assistance was headed by a German called Tacke. Sivagnanam wanted me to do the cost benefit analysis (CBA) of this project with him. That gave me important insights not only to cost benefit analysis but also to the ways in which these large multilateral financial institutions work. We prepared several alternatives of possible CBAs for the project, some more optimistic than others. One could increase the benefits accruing from the project by having an optimistic view of the yields from paddy, and minimizing risks.
There were all kinds of ways in which one could dabble with the levels of costs and benefits. The ADB was anxious to lend the money, and so they were inclined to maximize the potential benefits and lower the risks of failure. The Ministry wanted the money and we were happy to seem more optimistic than we actually were.The ADB had their own views of project management. As financier, they were anxious for an efficient system of management. The Minister had a more political perspective, and was inclined to have his own views on management. The administrators in the Ministry agreed more with the ADB than with the Minister, and used ADB to get their own way with the Minister.
One other assignment of mine was the Committee established by the Prime Minister to inquire into and report on the future of the Gal Oya Development Board (GODB). The GODB had outlived its usefulness, but it was difficult to get rid of it as, after 20 years of life, there were vested interests. The Prime Minister appointed John Arthur Amaratunga, Deputy Minister of Planning to be the sole member of the Committee.The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry appointed me as the Secretary of the Committee. In appointing this Committee, the Prime Minister did not consult the Minster. The Minister’s relations with the Prime Minister were semi-detached, and there were tensions in the relationship. The Planning Ministry was critical of the Lands Ministry in several respects and the Prime Minister was the Planning Minister.
Sri Kantha, in appointing me as Secretary told me that I do not have to keep them informed of what is going on, as neither he nor the Minister were interested in the subject. The Committee held a few meetings and I wrote the report with the guidance of Arthur Amaratunga. The overall recommendation was to wind up the Gal Oya Board. It was a delight to work with Amaratunga. We did most of our work at his home on Gregory’s Road, over cups of tea for me and a little stronger brew for him. We were to later become family friends with the Amaratungas.
My work on this Committee brought me into contact with the Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake on two or three occasions. On one of these occasions, I remember seeing Gamani Corea who was Permanent Secretary, Planning. He made a presentation to the Prime Minister about cultivation of paddy, quoting FAO reports. At the end of it, the Prime Minister asked Gamani whether he had ever stepped into a paddy field. The Prime Minister obviously knew more about paddy cultivation than the FAO experts.
When I reflect on my days with the Ministry of Lands over a period of 10 years, it strikes me that technical, in contrast to administrative, personnel, were the most important people in the Ministry, at all levels. The irrigation and electrical engineers, and the surveys people and technical assistants, were the ones who were at the frontline of development activities of the Ministry. They were the people who opened up the dry zone and built the dams and the canals to irrigate the land.
They have not received their due share of recognition for the contribution they made. In my work during these 10 years I had a close working relationship with these technical personnel at all levels in remote comers of Sri Lanka. Going on circuit in the districts, I have stayed with these people in their homes in remote areas, many of them located close to irrigation tanks, and there was a great sense of comradeship. It is difficult to mention all their names, but the memory of a romantic dry zone remains with me. I loved working in the dry zone at a time when these places were still remote.
During my years at the Lands Ministry, I was involved with the Ceylon Administrative Service Association (CASA). In 1968. they appointed me as one if its joint secretaries, along with Ranjith Withana. I held this post only for one year as I was leaving for the UK. The President of CASA was D. Rajendra, who was then the Commissioner of National Housing. Rajendra was an engaging personality and was the son of Sir Waityalingam Doraiswamy who had been the MP for Kayts and Speaker of the State Council.
To go back, it was an exciting time for the CASA. The Civil Service was abolished in 1962 and in its place had come the Ceylon Administrative Service. One of the main issues was how to select the limited number of persons for the higher grades from about 400 staff officers in the public service. The solution at the time was to have a competitive examination for all staff officers with over five years service, so that a limited number can be recruited to move on to higher grades.
In 1967, the first examination was held and 37 officers were selected. There was much resentment at this arrangement on the part of a large number of officers who did not get through the examination.They wanted this arrangement to be done away with and instead move towards a seniority-based promotion system and the expansion of the number in the higher classes. The younger officers preferred the current arrangement.
That year in 1969, the annual general meeting of the CASA was not pleasant. Several officers whom I knew well and one or two whom I considered were friends made noisy and angry protests. That incident remains in my mind. After I left, the CASA broke up into two. Anyway, being Secretary of the Association gave me a new interest in public administration issues. I might add here that the Prime Minister Dudley Senanayaka was the chief guest for the CASA dinner after all the shenanigans of the day in 1969.
(Excerpted from the writer’s autobiography, The Long Littleness of Life. Leelananda De Silva was a member of the Ceylon Administrative Service from 1960 to 1978. He was Senior Assistant Secretary and Director of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs in the 1970s working closely with Prime Minister Sirima Bandaranaike. Later in his career he was a senior international consultant in the UN system and Resident Representative of the Third World Forum in Geneva)
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 . )
US sports envoys to Lanka to champion youth development
Rahuman questions sudden cancellation of leave of CEB employees
