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PORN STAR STORMY DANIELS TESTIFIES ABOUT THE “MOST DISGUSTING 90 SECONDS OF HER LIFE”
Trump hush money trial completes fourth week of testimony
by V. K.Chandrasoma
Stating the obvious, Trump and incumbent President Biden are still the nominees of their Parties for the 2024 presidency. The mystery that defies logic is that Biden, the incumbent president, having brought back sanity to a White House disgraced by the former president, is unable to put any distance in the national polls between himself and Trump.This is the most pathetic choice for the presidency the American voters have ever faced in history. The election of Trump will mean the end of Democracy. Period. The election of Biden will result in a backlash of violence by Trump’s white supremacist domestic terrorists, especially if he is convicted and imprisoned. Violence which may approach the intensity of a second Civil War.
It may be pertinent to look back on the history of the US presidency in living memory, to reassure ourselves that America was not always like this. The White House had never before plummeted to the fascist depths reminiscent of the Third Reich of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.US presidents after WW II, Democratic and Republican, have been much like a curate’s eggs: some good and bad at the same time, others having distinct good and bad parts. But every single one of them, from Roosevelt to Biden, even Nixon, revered the sanctity of the Constitution of the United States and the dignity of the Oval Office. Bar Trump.
President Roosevelt guided the nation well on the path to social and economic justice with his New Deal after World War II. The beginnings of the social safety net in America which Republicans contemptuously decry today as “Commie” ideology, while enjoying its benefits. Benefits that still fall far short of the social and economic safety net enjoyed by the citizens of all other developed countries.FDR was succeeded on his death by President Harry Truman, who in 1945 had to make the most heartbreaking decision any president would face: to authorize the dropping of atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 6 and 9, 1945, killing more than 100,000 men, women and children.
Japan surrendered on August 14, 1945, officially ending a war in which 70 – 85 million people had perished. The alternative to this seemingly inhumane decision was to sacrifice millions more lives in the invasion of Japan, which would not have surrendered under any other circumstances.
Eisenhower, a Republican, continued FDR’s “socialist” New Deal programs, expanded social security, prioritized taxes where the wealthy paid taxes up to 90%, which made for a thriving middle class. He played a major role in the construction of the nation’s freeway network. Every Republican president who came after him pales by comparison.
Then came Kennedy, a war hero and the most charismatic president in the nation’s history, who with his style, soaring oratory and a beautiful wife brought a new glamour to the White House, renamed during his administration after Camelot, the legendary court of King Arthur in 12th century England. Kennedy is mainly remembered for his unflinching courage during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when he stared down Khrushchev to remove nuclear missiles from Cuba, and for his determination to conquer space, when he famously said, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard”.
Kennedy was extremely popular with the ladies; his numerous extra-marital affairs, notably with sex bomb Marilyn Monroe, were legendary. He is supposed to have told British Prime Minister, Harold MacMillan, in 1961, “if I did not slip the presidential sausage to a woman once every three days, I would get a splitting headache”. Much to the horror of that strait-laced gentleman, whose experience of stiff organs certainly did not include political sausages, confined as they probably were to the traditional British stiff upper lip.
Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson succeeded to the presidency on Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. Like President Biden, he was a fine president, a decent man. He presided over the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, amongst other progressive legislation. But in the end, he was undone for his role in escalating the Vietnam War, which prompted him not to seek re-election in 1968.
Biden is continuing to fail in traditional national polls, mainly because of his unqualified support of Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s disproportionate revenge against the atrocities committed by the terrorist organization of Hamas on October 7, is fast being transformed into a genocide against the civilian Palestinian population of Gaza. So far, 35,000 innocent Palestinian civilians have been killed and two million displaced, on the verge of starvation, since October 7. The violence shows no signs of abatement.
Biden has, at last, probably too late, censured Netanyahu and threatened to stop the flow of arms until Israel agrees to a negotiated ceasefire. A threat which is falling on deaf ears. Netanyahu has vowed “to fight tooth and nail” and continue to wave the shroud of the Holocaust to sanitize the Zionist intention of an ironical twist to Hitler’s Final Solution – the genocide of the Palestinian people and the establishment of the sovereign state of Israel.
Since 1948, the world has done nothing while the Jews have, with American support, illegally, violently and with impunity annexed Palestinian land, purely on the basis of a Biblical statement made 3,000 years ago, that Palestine is the homeland of the Jewish people. The Divine Title Deed, notarized by the Christian God Himself.
Richard Nixon, who lost the presidency to JFK by a whisker in 1960, won the White House in 1968 and 1972 by landslides. He counted many achievements during his presidency, including ending the Vietnam War and negotiating a detente with the Peoples Republic of China.However, his presidency will always be held in disgrace because of Watergate, a cover-up of a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office building in the nation’s capital. Compared to the treasonous felonies of sedition and espionage that implicate the contemptible Trump, Watergate is a mere peccadillo.
Nixon’s vice-president, Gerald Ford, succeeded him on his resignation.
Ford’s only “achievement” during his brief presidency was his pardon of Nixon for crimes committed during Watergate.Ford was succeeded by Democrat Jimmy Carter. A disciplined and compassionate president, Carter championed human rights, bolstered Social Security, added nearly eight million jobs and sought to improve the environment. He helped to bring amity between Israel and Egypt with the famous Camp David Agreement of 1978. He also established full diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. Carter was a fine president but a principled, therefore terrible, politician. He was outmaneuvered by the Great Communicator, Ronald Reagan after one term, in 1980.
Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, which he should have received in 1978, “for his decades of untiring efforts to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social welfare”.
Since 1984, Jimmy Carter (now 99 years-old) and his wife, Rosalynn, have been personally involved in building and renovating homes with Habitat for Humanity. He is still actively involved in the project, since his devoted wife of 77 years died in November 2023. She was 96 years old.
Reagan was a worse president than he was a mediocre Hollywood actor. Credited with having ended the Cold War, Reagan’s signature achievement was his infamous policy of trickle-down economics, which cut the maximum tax rate of corporations and the wealthy from 65% to 40%, that began the process of marginalizing a thriving middle class.The two presidencies of the Bushes, George H.W. and George W. served as disastrous bookends for the prosperous eight-year presidency of Bill Clinton.
The older Bush started the Gulf War against Iraq. The younger Bush tried to outdo daddy, and waged an illegal war against Iraq, also doomed to failure, with enormous costs to lives, property and reputation. Both left their presidencies in financial and environmental crises, which were rescued by their successors, Presidents Clinton and Obama, in 1992 and 2008, respectively.
Clinton’s two terms resulted in the longest economic expansion in American history, added 22 million new jobs, the largest expansion of education opportunity since the GI bill, among many other stellar achievements. His administration ended in a surplus of $230 billion.
Clinton also had a fondness for the ladies, though he was an altar boy compared to JFK. His presidency was marred by a consensual affair with an intern, for which “crime” he was impeached. He was, like JFK, a man of great charisma, and never had to pay to have sex with porn stars. The two-term administration of President Barack Obama rescued a nation on the brink of recession, and in eight years, transformed it to a prosperous country with 72 weeks of continuous economic growth, well on the path to social and economic justice. A president who had adorned the mantle of the Leader of the Free World with universal respect and admiration, achieved in the face of Republican obstruction at every progressive turn. A scandal-free presidency that ranks among the greatest in history.
Four short years later, from 2016 to 2020, the USA became a different country. One which had lost the confidence of its allies and consorted with its adversaries; sacrificed the threat of climate change at the altar of pollution and corporate greed; cost the avoidable deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans to the pandemic in a failed and cynical effort to safeguard the economy; forsook the financial plight of the neediest for the benefit of its billionaires and corporations; and, most importantly, polarized the nation and rekindled racial and religious tensions to the cusp of a second Civil War.
This brief history of American administrations since WWII till 2016 shows the depths to which Trump has dragged the values of the presidency.Trump’s hush money trial resumed on Thursday, with the salacious evidence of Stormy Daniels, the porn star who, on Tuesday, described her sexual encounter with Trump as “the most disgusting 90 seconds of her life”. She was constrained by presiding Judge Meachan not to reveal the juicier parts of the encounter, like a description on Trump’s genitalia, which Stormy had hilariously likened to a little mushroom at previous TV interviews. One that would produce a tedious “mushroom cloud” that would cause no fear to the nation’s adversaries, much less an exultation of gratitude to the Almighty from the ladies.
Stormy Daniels continued her testimony on Thursday. In cross-examination, the defense counsel attempted to throw mud at Stormy with references to her “dialog with the dead while living in a haunted house”, while badgering her with her past sexual fiascos. A defiant Stormy refused to be intimidated by these combative tactics and more than held her own. The day ended with the same defense I reported last week – that Donald Trump paid $130,000 to a porn star as an incentive for not going public with the “fact” that he didn’t have sex with her.
Perhaps Stormy Daniels referred to the most damaging point to Trump’s defense: the fact that his lawyers dare not have him testify at the trial, fully aware that he would commit perjury before he completed his first sentence.
Or as Stormy tweeted, “Real men respond to testimony (against them) by being sworn in and taking the stand in court. Oh …. Wait. Never mind”.
The next prosecution witness will be Donald Trump’s erstwhile “fixer”, Michael Cohen, who has already spent a three-year prison sentence for his part as the architect of this hush-money scheme. Having taken the fall for Trump, he certainly has no love for him, and his testimony against Trump next week should be both interesting and hopefully, disastrously conclusive.
The extraordinarily archaic rules of the Electoral College make it almost impossible for a Third-Party candidate to successfully vie for the presidency. However, the main Third-Party candidate for 2024, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of RFK and nephew of JFK, added some improbable though rueful humor to the current presidential race. The New York Times revealed last Wednesday that a neurologist, after reviewing a brain scan in 2010 of the then 56-year-old Kennedy,
had told him that his health issues could have been “caused by a worm that got into my brain, ate a portion of it and died”. Of starvation?Kennedy said he would be prepared “to eat five more brain worms and still outclass Trump and Biden at a presidential debate”, joking, in golfing parlance, that he would “beat them both with a six-worm handicap!”
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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