Features
Sirisena Cooray at 90: Still Premadasa’s Man
by Tisaranee Gunasekara
“And I think I did not disappoint him. I did not bring disrepute on him or embarrass him. Whatever I did brought credit to him. That was how I became his chief supporter. Soon I became known as Premadasa’s man.
We were friends.”
Sirisena Cooray (President Premadasa and I: Our Story)
As boy and youth, Sirisena Cooray wanted to be many things, a policeman, a journalist, a sailor and an actor, never a politician. But there was one constant which existed side-by-side with these varying dreams – a commitment to Ranasinghe Premadasa, his vision and his particular brand of politics.
Premadasa became Cooray’s hero long before they met. Premadasa was the rising star in Central Colombo, and a friend of Cooray’s older brother Nandisena. In that village-like urban centre, everyone knew and talked about Premadasa. Sirisena Cooray was barely twelve when he gathered his friends and set up an organisation modelled on Premadasa’s Sucharitha Movement. He called it Sri Sucharita Vaag Vardana Lama Samajaaya (Sri Sucharita Children’s Society for the Promotion of Speaking Arts). The same way other boys play at war and try to emulate the exploits of their favourite military heroes, Cooray and his friends played at politics, making speeches and engaging in debates.
But not politics as usual. That was what Cooray’s older brother was doing, and for young Sirisena it held no attraction. Premadasa’s brand of politics was different. He was a ‘reformer’ and it was this determination and commitment to improve things which turned into a siren song for Cooray.
In his book, President Premadasa and I: Our story, Cooray recounts how he used to listen to the discussions between his brother and Ranasinghe Premadasa. Premadasa would have known about young Sirisena’s admiration and the boyish attempts to emulate him. Premadasa would have been both touched and flattered. When he talked and argued politics with his friend, Nandisena, was he also indirectly addressing young Sirisena? Perhaps. In any case, Sirisena’s admiration for Premadasa, formed from afar, became intensified through these close encounters. “Mr. Premadasa had new ideas,” Cooray would recall; he was a ‘far more serious’ man than those around him, a man who ‘spoke sense.’ It wasn’t just the impression of a starry eyed boy. Cooray’s eminently sensible father told his young son to follow not his brother but Premadasa if he wanted to do politics. When Premadasa and Nandisena Cooray fell out, Srisiena chose not his brother, but Premadasa.
It is not only in military battlefields that trust and loyalty become the greatest virtues. It is also so in political battlefields. Premadasa, who had already planned his journey, understood that it would entail an endless struggle, no less ferocious for its non-use of physical weapons. In Cooray he found the ideal companion, a friend in whose company he could relax, a follower whose loyalty was beyond question, and a comrade who was both trustworthy and competent.
The trust was not merely political, but also personal, including life-and-death decisions. In the late 1980’s Premadasa developed a health complication and the doctors in the San Francisco hospital he was being treated at advised an immediate operation. His personal physician Dr, Nanayakkara disagreed. The argument went back and forth with no conclusion. In his book Cooray wrote about what happened next. “Finally Mr. Premadasa got up and said, ‘I leave everything to Mr. Sirisena Cooray. Whatever decision he takes I will go with it.’ Then he left the room.”
The Premadasa-Cooray partnership lasted almost four decades; in terms of longevity and intensity, it was singular in Lankan politics and rare even in the global context. It was a bond breakable only by death. And the death came sooner than either of them thought possible, when a Tiger suicide bomber killed Premadasa on the May Day of 1993.
A friendship for the books
Bromance is a Twenty First Century word for a human-relationship which is timeless. Not friendship or comradeship alone, but both together, mixed with brotherly love and something else which is indefinable and indescribable, a non-physical but intensely emotional bond between two men with shared beliefs and goals.
The first literary rendition of bromance goes back several millennia, to the great epic Gilgamesh (considered world’s first piece of literature). The bond between the poem’s eponymous hero and his friend/companion Enkidu forms the main channel along which the story flows. And in Homer’s Iliad, the relationship which drives the story to its tragic end doesn’t belong to the divinely beautiful Helen, but to ‘fleet-footed’ Achilles and ‘his own, his dear, his beloved companion’ Patroklus.
“I know I’m going to lose a part of myself,” 1 Ranasinghe Premadasa said in 1978, about Sirisena Cooray’s imminent departure to Malaysia. Cooray had been appointed as the new High Commissioner at his own request. Premadasa made the remark at a felicitation ceremony he organised for his departing friend at Temple Trees. The separation was of very short duration, rather less than a year. Premadasa wanted Cooray to be the UNP’s mayoral candidate for Colombo. Cooray dithered at first and then agreed, even though he had sold his house in Colombo and all his household items prior to his departure.
It was a pattern which ran throughout their relationship. Cooray would go away; Premadasa would let him go, knowing that he would be back, soon. Premadasa, who was known for his unforgiving attitude towards anyone who left him in the lurch, accepted Cooray’s not infrequent departures as pro forma. He didn’t regard these leavings as abandonment. He knew Cooray would never abandon him. In an untrustworthy world, Cooray was the one man, the only man, Premadasa could trust, to tell him the unpalatable truth, to turn his ideas into reality, and to always, always return.
The departures served as preludes to renewed affirmation of the importance of the relationship. Cooray, the younger partner, needed that affirmation, and Premadasa, an impatient man in all other respects, was willing to go along. A telling example was Cooray’s sudden resignation as the Minister of Housing in September 1990. In his letter of resignation, he indicates that he wants some time away from politics. The letter, at first glance, is a formal one, from a minister to the president. But allusions to the emotional connection between the two are scattered throughout the missive, hints that Premadasa, a man of unusual intelligence, would not have missed. In the last paragraph, what is hitherto implied is made explicit: “Dear Sir, you are aware after the death of my parents, there is only one person who is everything to me.”
Premadasa, reportedly read the letter three times but refused to accept the resignation; “Tell Sirisena to come back whenever he can,” he told the bearer of that letter, T Mahalingam. And Sirisena did, within weeks. He had the affirmation he was looking for, again. “What I was trying to do was to remind him that he needed me. I knew that he wouldn’t let me go… When everyone else wanted to leave he would say go to hell. I knew I was the only exception.”
He was. But that status had to be earned, and was earned, through decades of total commitment and unswerving loyalty. Perhaps this was never more in evidence than during the presidential election of 1988. A memorandum sent by Cooray to Premadasa analysing the problems faced during the campaign reveals the titanic nature of that challenge. Problems were galore, from transport (…many persons who promised us vehicles evaded us…) and propaganda (“the grass roots organisation was paralysed and no effective poster pasting campaign was carried out in many parts) to a not very cooperative party headquarters. All this was on top of a violent boycott campaign by the JVP. As Cooray wrote, “Usually you do not have to motivate your own people; they vote for you anyway; in this election we had to try and motivate our own people to at least go out and vote. Without a candidate like Mr. Premadasa we would not have been able to pull it off.” It actually required two – a candidate of the calibre of Ranasinghe Premadasa and an organiser like Cooray with his competence and commitment. It was that dual act which pulled off the most difficult win in the history of Lankan presidential elections.
Till death and beyond
Cooray was in politics not for himself but for Premadasa and Premadasa knew that. Premadasa was the reason Cooray entered politics and stayed in it. When he wrote, “The day I lost him was the end of the story,” he was not exaggerating. It was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It was also the explanation for much of what Cooray did (or didn’t do) afterwards, starting with resigning from the post of UNP Secretary General.
President Wijetunga had asked for Cooray’s resignation and when Cooray told a newspaper that he will not resign nor can he be kicked out, it seemed as if he would dig in and fight the anti-Premadasa forces then rapidly gaining ascendance within the UNP. Many who wished the UNP well wanted him to stay on, notably President Jayewardene. But all Cooray wanted was to remain General Secretary until the unveiling of the Premasasa statue at Hulftsdorf on Premadasa’s first death anniversary. Once the ceremony was over, he came home, wrote his letter of resignation and sent it to Wijetunga.
Sirisena Cooray was not an ambitious man, a crucial factor which cemented his bond with Premadasa. The struggle belonged to Premadasa. So long as Premadasa was alive, Cooray would stay at his side. But when Premadasa died, the main reason for Cooray’s involvement in politics vanished. Post-Premadasa, it was a drama bereft of its main actor. Cooray could have stepped into that role. Objectively he had the capacity. But the subjective factors were not present; he had no desire for the job.
Ranasinghe Premadasa was as an outsider, a man from the ‘wrong side’ of Colombo and of a non-Goigama caste. He incurred the hate and fear of those who believed that political leadership should remain an upper-class/caste monopoly, the prerogative of a few families rather than the right of any Lankan-born man or woman. When Premadasa was killed, this fear and this hate were transferred onto his political other-half, Sirisena Cooray. Every crime Premadasa had been accused of was now thrown at Cooray, plus one addition – that of causing Premadasa’s death.
Some of those who levelled these preposterous charges knew enough of Cooray to know that he was a decent human being incapable of committing such crimes; others had no knowledge of him and feared what they didn’t know. A retired judge who was brought by a mutual friend for a policy discussion said at the end of the meeting that he was so nervous about meeting this ‘notorious character’ he left instructions about what to do in case he didn’t return. Most of Cooray’s first time visitors would stare at his collection of books – which ranged from Goethe to Agatha Christie – as if they believed him to be not just a killer but an illiterate one.
Cooray would try to see humour in the horrendous accusations made against him. Their political consequences he could deal with (though they included three presidential commissions against him – and the dead Premadasa – and a spell of incarceration during CBK presidency). What was harder to handle was the personal hurt. Had there been a Premadasa to fight for, he would have borne that pain and continued. But there wasn’t, and he just didn’t see the point of going on. Had he been the man his enemies feared, he wouldn’t have refused the premiership offered to him by the party in the immediate aftermath of Premadasa’s death; nor would he have given away the two great Premadasa political legacies, the Sucharitha Movement and Colombo Central. He would have used the three to get to the top, and he could have done it. He didn’t because he wasn’t the hard, driven, and power-obsessed colossus his enemies feared, but someone much softer and kinder, someone whose political motivation came not from personal ambition or greed, not from anger or hate, but from the love he had for his leader and friend, Premadasa.
In his book, Cooray wrote, “Without me, he too would have been alone.” True, had Cooray died first, there would have been a political and a personal void in Preamdasa’s life that no other could fill. But Premadasa would have gone on, because the struggle to transform Sri Lanka was his life. Cooray couldn’t, Premadasa was his political life.
Sans
Premadasa, Cooray would dabble in politics, because he didn’t want to let down those who stayed with him, especially the activists from Colombo Central. He appreciated their loyalty, understood their utter sense of loss and was loath to abandon them. But his heart was not in it. What truly motivated him was keeping Premadas’s memory alive and defending his name from the mendacious charges levelled at him (something his family failed to do, daughter Dulanjalee being the occasional exception).
Many saw the Premadasa Centre as Cooray’s vehicle for power, but for Cooray it was a platform to defend Premadasa from the calumnies and to save his memory for posterity. It was also a kind of a time bubble where members of the political tribe of Premadasa loyalists could gather and remember. Though its activities included such forward looking measures as preparing a comprehensive national plan, informed by inputs from experts from various fields, it was more epilogue than new chapter, let alone a new book.
When Sirisena Cooray was planning some event to commemorate Ranasinghe Premadasa, one could catch a glimpse of the peerless organiser who led the presidential election battle of 1988, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, the brilliant worker who headed the 1.5 Million Housing Programme, the doer who handled the reconstruction of the Mirisawetiya Chaitya and the raising of the Maligawila Buddha statue. In those moments he seemed inspired and was inspiring. In those moments he was the man Premadasa chose.
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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