Features
UNESCO and having a good time in Paris with Lankan friends
Excerpted from volume ii of the Sarath Amunugama auobiography
“Since war begins in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the foundations for peace should be sought’
UNESCO Motto
At the age of 43 I became a senior official of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Is a specialized body of the UN on a par with FAO, WHO and ILO. After the war, by common consent, the UNO was located in New York, while the other four agencies were set up in three major European cities – FAO in Rome, WHO and ILO in Geneva and UNESCO in Paris. Needless to say the relevant host countries were happy to accommodate the UN and provide many local services as part of their responsibility.
A large number of nationals provided basic services while the professional staff represented the UN’s global membership. The first Director-General of UNESCO was the British scientist Julian Huxley, the brother of Aldous, who is credited with writing the motto quoted at the head of this chapter. He established the ground rules of the organization which were very British in character. The DG in my time was Mahtar M’Bow from Senegal who, though alleged to favour Africans, made an attempt to have a fair distribution of positions.
The fact that Sri Lanka was not over represented unlike the Indians and Bangladeshis may have been an added factor in my favour when I became a candidate for the post of Director of the IPDC. India had a strong candidate for the post in Unnikrishnan who was the Managing Director of the Press Trust of India. I knew Unni when he was the PTI correspondent in Colombo before he was promoted to be its General Manager.
He had invited me for some PTI seminars held in Bombay after I became the Secretary of the Ministry of State. I was
lodged in a hotel in the heart of the city which had been the haunt of Krishna Menon when he was a member of the Lok Sabha and Minister in the Nehru Cabinet. The hotel was close to the PTI office. That honour did not work for me since I came down with viral hepatitis after my stay in Bombay.
There was also a whole host of African candidates including a well-regarded Professor of Communications from a Nigerian University. As mentioned earlier, on being selected I was asked to assume duties at the earliest possible date. I replied that I will be available from September 1, 1982.
UNESCO Headquarters is located in two buildings which are close to each other in a salubrious quarter of Paris. The main building designed by Le Corbousier with sculptures by Henry Moore outside and paintings by Picasso inside, is in Place de Fontenoy facing the main entrance of the French Ecole Militaire which is the legendary army school in which Napoleon was trained.
Close-by across the road is the newer ‘Batiment’ [building] built in Brutalist style which houses the Culture and Communications division and branch offices of the embassies of the countries represented in UNESCO. In the basement is also the duty free commissary which is well patronized by the staff and is invariably choc-a-block, particularly on Fridays when the ever thirsty officials stock up for their weekend parties.
The DG, M’Bow, the former Minister of Education of Senegal, was located in the Fontenoy building which had a floor for his administrative staff. He also had an apartment on the top floor in which he lived with his wife and where occasionally he invited us for dinner particularly if it was in honour of a visiting dignitary from our part of the world. Once he invited the visiting Balangoda Ananda Maitriya Thero for a ‘dane’ in his residence, where we were the helper. The reputed monk was very old and not in his proper senses. In his ‘anusasana’ he said that the world was held aloft by tortoises. My friend an Indian architect who translated the priest’s words into French told me that he had edited out a lot of the gibberish so that the highly educated audience would not laugh at the old monk.
Another dinner was held for a few of us who were to accompany M’Bow to New Delhi to participate in it seminar on communication and also meet Indian PM Indira Gandhi. Indira was a fluent French speaker who had represented India in the Governing Council of UNESCO when she was a member of Shastri’s cabinet. So no translators were needed and our DG, who was always nervous about his poor English, had a long and pleasant conversation with the Indian PM.
Secretariat
The IPDC office was located in a tower in the new building in Rue Miollis. Top levels of the tower was occupied by the communications division of UNESCO. Gerard Bolla as ADG ruled the roost from the topmost floor. In the floor below were the ‘intellectuals’ led by Antonio Pasquali [Venezuela] and Alan Hancock [UK] who together with us at IPDC, dealt with the conceptual issues of the New Information Order.
Two floors below were taken by the `engine room’ which comprised of media specialists who provided training and advice to national media institutions of the ‘Third World. They were basically technicians who could fix practical problems of the media. They were led by Pierre Naveaux, a hard drinking Belgian who had been the head of a Film Unit there and his assistant Frank Goodship [Canada].
There were also numerous broadcasters who were led by a Philipino ‘Choy’ Arnaldo. Choy had been with Radio Veritas, the Catholic Broadcasting station located in Manila.
Later Lakshman Rao [India] joined Hancock on a short term assignment. They were a motley crew who were somewhat nervous about the interest in a new Information Order by member states and the establishment of IPDC. Earlier they had an easy time girdling the globe advising radio stations and film units. My challenge was to coopt their services and their budgets to achieve the objectives determined by the Governing Council of IPDC which were to create a transformation in global media capability and its practice.
In the IPDC secretariat I was assisted by Claude Ondobo from the Camaroons who had his work cut out because of the demands of the emerging African countries for both technical assistance
and training. The majority of African members in our governing council came from authoritarian states which were getting a ‘bad press’ in western media and wanted IPDC to do something about it.
Since our focus was on developing countries I encouraged Claude to increase African participation in IPDC activities and also sought funding for those projects by creating ‘funds in trust’ with money from
Scandinavian countries.
Our ADG Bolla also made sure that the IPDC had good secretarial assistance. The leader of our support staff was the experienced Madame Hoareau, an English woman married to a Frenchman, and who had earlier been Bolla’s private secretary. It was a kind gesture on his part to help me who was new to the UN bureaucratic practices which entailed a lot of form filling. I also had the feeling that this placement helped the ADG to keep tabs on the activities of the IPDC.
The UNESCO establishment from M’Bow downwards was apprehensive that due to political interests, IPDC could function outside their chain of command. I am sure that Hoareau would have given good reports about us because Bolls soon began to treat us as his favourites. The second secretary of our office was Nadia, a friendly and capable lady of emigre Russian stock, who by a happy coincidence was earlier married to a Frenchman named Jacques Renault whose family had tea plantations in Talawakelle.
Jacques was close to Sri Lankans in Paris and would unfailingly attend our embassy parties. Nadia had visited Talawakelle as a young bride and had good memories of Sri Lanka though by this time she was divorced and Jacques had married a well-known artist who too was a regular participant at our embassy soirees. Once, when on holiday back home, I visited Jacque’s tea property. The present Tea Research Institute is located on lands acquired from his company before they were restricted to fifty acres by land reform.
There is a beautiful old church on this property, but it is badly neglected now. In addition to the regular staff we also had a young French `stagiare’ who helped Claude with his African projects. This over allocation of resources to IPDC was queried by UNESCO’s staff management committee of which Ananda Guruge was a member. Bolls and I appeared before them and after listening to us the committee decided to approve the current allocation of staff. That was the only time I had to cross swords with the management reviewers of UNESCO.
Paris — `The City of Light’
Right from my school days Paris was the city of my dreams. That fascination may have begun with the stories which Mr. Kannangara, our middle school teacher had spun for us – tales of the Count of Monte Cristo. Once a week he transported us to pre-revolutionary France when narrating the adventures of Jean Valjean and his adversaries. At about the same time we saw films about the ‘Scarlet Pimpernel’ who spirited noblemen away from Paris and the guillotine.
In our University days we were inspired by the French Trotskyites and as supporters of the LSSP read every instruction sent to our leaders by the ‘revolutionaries’ of the Fourth International based in Paris. The struggles between the different lines’ espoused by Trotskyite intellectuals within the Fourth International as played out in LSSP tactics on the ground in Sri Lanka, which varied from time to time, were diligently explained to us by Doric de Souza in his weekly clandestine lectures to us in Peradeniya. As the poet Wordsworth said of the French Revolutionary era, which may well be used to describe us in our youth; “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive; but to be young was very heaven”.
Though I settled down in Paris in 1982 I had visited ‘The City of Light’ every year since 1977. From my first visit in the 1960s I had attended several meetings in Paris and also spent time with friends there. For instance I was in Paris in 1981 when the French Socialist Party won the Presidency with Francois Mitterand as its candidate. We joined in the partying on the Left Bank which went on till morning and saw red roses, the attractive symbol devised by the ‘avant garde’ marketeers of Mitterand, that were strewn everywhere.
On another occasion, as I have related earlier, I joined the multitude of young men who accompanied the cortege of Jean Paul Sartre for burial at the cemetery in Montparnasse. I had witnessed the massive May Day rallies organized by the CGT or the Communist Party’s Trade Union as it wended its way from the heart of Paris – the Bastille. Equally impressive were the military parades marking the Fourth of July. I naturally looked forward to an interesting stay not only in my new job but also in the wonderfully artistic city which had been mercifully spared the bombings which had obliterated cities like Berlin, Dresden and parts of London.
My first task was to find lodgings till I could get more spacious accommodation when my family arrived. I was lucky in that my many friends helped me to settle in comfortably. Three of my best friends in Paris – Manu Ginige, Premachandra and Navaz – were all living in apartments in a building in Rue de Lilas in Paris 19, close to the Buttes Chaumont. This had been once the Bohemian quarter of Paris and was now a Communist stronghold.
Premachandra was a Communist who had as a young man first migrated to Moscow from Colombo. After some time there he had crossed over to Paris and married Irene, a girl of Greek nationality .He had raised a family of two girls and a boy and was working as a ‘cordon bleu’ chef in Radio France. He was missing Sri Lanka badly and had managed to persuade his friends, Ginige and Navaz, to occupy flats in his building. There was another vacant flat in the building and I rented it.
Our presence was duly noted by other flat mates, many of them Communists, who jocularly called our building ‘Maison Sri Lankaise’ or Sri Lanka House. Prema and his wife loved to cook and most evenings were spent in his or Manu’s flat eating, drinking and discussing politics. Any Sri Lankan politician coming to Paris – but particularly Dharmasiri Senanayake their long standing friend – was entertained by the Premachandras.
All the visitors were asked to bring along were Sri Lankan newspapers and ‘pol’ arrack which he shared with us. Since Prema was a practicing chef who used to cook for the bigwigs of Radio France, he would try out his classical French menus on us. Needless to say we were happy to oblige him and compliment him on his mastery of French cuisine. On some Sundays we would go with him to the local arrondissement market to see him buying fish and poultry after examining and prodding the product.
The local charcouterie staff reserved special cuts of meat for him and the butcher was happy to be complimented by a cordon bleu chef. After about six months in Rue de Lilas all of us began to put on weight because of Premachandra’s sauces and sugary confections. Prema who was smoker into the bargain, got a heart attack to which he succumbed several years later. His only exercise was a Sunday stroll in the nearby park selling the Communist Party newspaper, ‘Le Humanite’.
Another visitor to Prema’s apartment was Esmond Wickremesinghe. He too was fond of good food though he had been warned about his health. Later we arranged an apartment for him with cooking facilities, close to UNESCO headquarters. A staffer from the embassy Abeyratne would cook his cholesterol and sugar free meals as ordered by the doctor. Whenever I hosted a party in my apartment I would invite Ananda Guruge and his wife Sujatha as well as Daniel Lefevre of UTA who also loved good food, to join our gang.
Since Manu and Navaz were embassy staffers at that time I would invariably join them in their soirees. Duty free liquor flowed freely at these parties and friends of Sri Lanka from all professions would congregate to support the embassy. Among the regulars were Bernard de Gaulle, a nephew of the famous leader, Jacques Renault and his wife who were artists, Daniel Lefevre and local heads of travel Companies like Neckermann, Club Mediteranee, UTA and Accor.
Some of the big wigs of French companies operating in Colombo were also present sometimes with their Sri Lankan representatives who were visiting Paris. A smattering of Asian ambassadors and local businessmen were also invited. Though usually it was bitterly cold outside the parties suitably fuelled by hot drinks and chillied curries went on late into the night. Sri Lankan parties were popular since unlike the Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis we served vintage scotch and champagne at our parties.
After Ananda Guruge became the Ambassador he stopped serving liquor and attendance dropped dramatically, especially from among the foreign guests. In Paris there were Embassy parties almost every evening as most countries were represented in France. Each Embassy wanted to outdo the other in attracting the Parisian elite. Good champagne and top of the order whiskeys were a great incentive for inveterate party goers who went from one embassy to another and were not averse to bad mouthing the poorer embassies.
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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