By Dr. Janaka Ratnasiri  Courtesy The Island

While appreciating Dr. Tilak Siyambalapitiya’s article on the present power crisis appearing in The Island of 25.03.2019, I would like to fill in some gaps in his article and also make some comments on the President’s statement about the power crisis as appearing in the media on the 27th.

The three issues

There are three main issues contributing to delay in adding generation capacity to the system. One is the delay in awarding the contract for building a 300 MW dual-fueled combined cycle gas turbine power plant at Kerawalapitiya and the second is the long delay taken to complete negotiations and do a proper environment assessment on the Sampur coal power plant. The third is the delay in building a terminal to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the country.

Delay in processing the tender for 300 MW power plant

In respect of the tender for building a 300 MW gas power plant, a call for requests for proposals (RFP) for this project was announced by the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) in November 2016. The closing date of the RFP was given initially as 22.02.2017, but later extended by a few months. According to the RFP, the letter of intent (LOI) to the selected bidder was to be issued in August 2017 after receiving approval of the PUCSL and the Cabinet of Ministers. The initial phase of open-cycle operation generating 200 MW is to be completed by mid-2019 and the second phase of combined-cycle operation to be completed by mid-2020.

However, even after more than two years of announcing the RFP, no award for the building of this power plant has been made. A series of articles appeared in The Island of 27th and 28th December 2018 under the caption “Delay in building new power plants – Who’s to be blamed?”, pointing the finger at the CEB for the delay. The article highlighted the fact that the main reason for the delay was the many shortcomings in the 500-page tender documents prepared by the CEB which failed to give the specification targets that should be met by the plant. Neither the CEB management nor the CEB Trade Unions has refuted these allegations. Had the tender evaluated and the award was made promptly according to the schedule, 200 MW of power could have been added to the national grid within a few months’ time. These shortcomings are described in detail in the two articles referred to above which may be accessed via:

http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=196713

http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=196764

PUCSL not approving the CEB Plan

Both the CEB and the Ministry of Power and Energy were heard over the electronic media recently saying that one reason for the current power crisis was caused by the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) not approving the CEB’s long term generation plan in time. The latest person to join this campaign against PUCSL is none other than the President himself. This was reported in all the media on the 27th, and according to the Island of 27.03.2019, the President was reported as saying that “some officials of the PUCSL and several Engineers of the CEB had links to the private power plant owners and they obstructed the implementation of the long-term power generation plan”.

Apart from the alleged link between officials and the private plant operators which I am unable to comment on, the statement that the present power crisis is caused by non-implementation of the CEB’s long term generation plan is far from the truth. According to Dr. TS, it was the non-implementation of the proposed Sampur coal power plant that has caused the present power crisis. It may be recalled that it was the President himself who decided to stop the construction of the coal power plant, announcing that he preferred a gas power plant instead. Perhaps, in view of many duties, he seems to have forgotten this.

The PUCSL was only recommending a plan comprising all gas power plants without including any coal power plants for base load generation in compliance with the provisions in the Electricity Act and it would also cause less pollution. Both the CEB management and trade unions vehemently rejected this plan and insisted that coal plants be included in the plan. Even if the PUCSL granted approval for the CEB plan promptly, it would not have prevented the present crisis. It is a pity that officials fail to advise the President and Ministers presenting the correct facts in this regard.

This dispute between the PUCSL and CEB went on for over a year and finally settled by the President by reversing his “no-coal” stand and approving the CEB plan to avoid CEB shutting down power to the country as they threatened intensifying their trade union action if their demand was not acceded. This is certainly not in keeping with ethical conduct expected from among the highest paid professionals in the country selected out of the best achievers at the GCE-A level examination. Was importing of coal a gold mine for them which prompted them to take such a drastic decision and trying to twist President’s arm?

The irony of the situation that though CEB engineers insisted on building more advanced coal power plants, they appear to be incapable of even maintaining the existing coal power plant. The Cabinet of Ministers at its meeting held on 26.02.2019 decided to award the contract for maintenance of boilers and turbines in the 3rd unit of Puttalam coal power plant to China Machinery Engineering Corporation, obviously because the local staff are unable to attend to this work, despite their working with the Chinese technicians for over six years. On the other hand, the existing combined-cycle power plants, one at Kerawalapitiya and two at Kelanitissa, are being operated and maintained by local staff without any problem. Isn’t this one more reason why CEB should opt for gas-fired power plants?

Delaying the commencement of the Sampur power plant

Even if the Sampur power plant was allowed to be built commencing in mid-2016, it would have taken at least five more years (typical period of construction for a coal power plant) to complete and would be available only in 2021. So, it is clear that stopping of the Sampur power plant could not have caused the present crisis as claimed by Dr. TS. Then, what is the real cause for the present power crisis? It may be recalled that the CEB entered into a memorandum of understanding with India’s NTPC Limited in December 2006 for the establishment of a 500 MW coal power plant at Sampur.

Subsequently, negotiations on modalities of executing the project with details of power plant specifications were commenced which continued for nearly five years, presumably because of disagreements between the two parties on such parameters as heat rate or efficiency, technology and unit capacity whether 250 MW or 300 MW. Finally, a Joint Venture was entered into by CEB and NTPC only in September 2011. Now, who is responsible for dragging the negotiations for nearly five years, which should not have taken more than one year, had the officials involved in the negotiations were competent and possessed negotiating skills.

Once the project was agreed upon, the proponent engaged an Indian Company to carry out an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) which took another four years to complete and was released only in 2015. It took one more year to get CEA approval. In the meantime, work on the project commenced with ground clearing which caused many protests from the public. Subsequently, the matter was taken up by a public-interest organization who filed a court case highlighting many defects in the EIA report that was approved by the CEA.

The case, however, did not proceed in view of the President’s decision to cancel the project.

Disregarding President’s ruling to cancel the Sampur project, the delay in adding capacity to the system causing the present crisis is the undue long delay of over 12 years to complete the negotiations and getting the EIA report approved. Both the CEA and NTPC are totally responsible for this long delay.

If the negotiations completed as well as the EIA completed without any defects within say 5 years from 2006 when the work on the plant could have commenced in 2011 and that was before President Sirisena came to power. If the construction of the plant took all precautions to mitigate adverse impacts on the environment, it could have been completed without facing any protests within another 5 years. Then, by now, the country would have had the benefit of added 500 MW of power in the system. It is pointless blaming others for one’s own faulty decision making, and this applies to CEB and Ministry officials as well as all the ministers who were in charge of the power and energy portfolio.

Unsolicited proposals for building an LNG terminal

The third issue is the delay in deciding on building a terminal for importing liquefied natural gas (LNG). Here, Sri Lanka has been performing like a good-hearted lady who does not want to say no to anyone approaching her, as the local saying goes. First, India approached with an offer for a 500 MW gas power plant and a terminal and the government said “yes”. Next Japan too approached with an offer for a 500 MW gas power plant and a terminal and the government said “yes”. Thirdly, China approached with an offer for a 400 MW gas power plant and a terminal to be built at Hambantota, and the government said “yes”.

Finally, South Korea wanted to install a floating LNG terminal with a capacity of 1 million tonnes per annum at no cost to the government on condition SL purchases the agreed LNG volume from the Korean Company for 20 years at market prices, and pay a penalty if the agreed amount is not purchased. Though the President was keen to say “yes” to the offer as he personally submitted a cabinet paper on it when the offer was first made, the Cabinet has not so far approved the offer for reasons highlighted in Dr. TS’s article. The head of state has apparently signed memoranda of understanding for these projects committing SL for undertaking them, I believe, without any consultation with the relevant authorities.

Out of these 4 offers, apparently only the offer made by China is now proceeding. Initially, the power plant was to supply power to the industrial zone to be built for Chinese investors in Hambantota to be managed entirely by the Chinese. Later, because of the legal requirement that only CEB could operate a transmission line, CEB was drawn into the project as a collaborator. Since a deep jetty is already available at Hambantota Port which is sparsely used, construction of an LNG terminal there could be undertaken with minimum cost. It is not known whether the terminal will import LNG only to feed the 400 MW power plant or import in excess and feed the surplus gas to the industries for use as a source of thermal energy.

With regard to the Indian and Japanese offers, the government established a tripartite negotiating committee to work out the modalities of establishing a joint venture for operating and maintaining a terminal for importing LNG in the western coast. The negotiating committee however does not appear to offer a level playing field for Sri Lanka as representatives with wide experience and knowledge on natural gas and LNG are sitting on one side, while those sitting on SL side lack such experience or knowledge. It is not known how the South Korean offer which came later but pursued by the President would affect the negotiations of the tripartite committee.

Locating a site for the terminal

According to media reports, studies are being undertaken to determine the suitability of Colombo Port to locate the land terminal to be built by the joint venture and the service of a foreign consultant is being sought to assist in this. Even from a layman’s point of view, however, Colombo Port is not the best location to build an LNG terminal, considering its limited extent and the volume of traffic using Port facilities daily. It is an international requirement that any LNG facility should have prescribed exclusion zones away from other activities. There is also the likelihood of the insurance premium for vessels calling at Colombo Port getting enhanced in the event an LNG terminal is located within the Port premises.

The other option of getting a floating terminal installed as proposed by South Korea is also not straight forward. The advertisement inserted by the Ministry calling alternative proposals to challenge the Korean proposal has indicated that the floating terminal could be moored within 9 km from the Port in a North-Western direction. The operation of such a facility in open sea during the South Western monsoon wind regime is not easy as evidenced from the operation of unloading of coal onto barges from coal carrying vessels, which is limited to only the non-monsoon period.

The next best option would be to utilize small vessels with capacity in the range 10,000 – 30,000 cubic metres to transport the LNG to a suitable location on the western coast. These small vessels are shallow and do not need deep jetties unlike the standard LNG carriers having capacity in the range 150,000 – 250,000 cubic metres. These small vessels are widely used today to supply LNG to low-consuming countries where large vessels cannot have access. The necessary LNG requirements could be sourced from any of the neighboring countries trading LNG.

Dr TS mentions about the large number of unsolicited proposals for LNG power plants and terminals. In addition, at government -to- government level, there are several unsolicited proposals. The reason for foreign parties and governments offering such unsolicited proposals for LNG power plants is mainly the inaction by Sri Lankan authorities. They would have seen SL as a potential market for LNG and knowing that the country has no expertise in the field and the lack of initiative by the government to develop the expertise, would have wanted genuinely to assist SL by making the offers.

Conclusion

Once the President ruled out the Sampur coal power plant in favour of a gas power plant, had the government policy makers and stakeholders got together and planned out a strategy to introduce natural gas to the country identifying its requirements in all sectors, followed up by inviting proposals prepared free of defects enabling all interested parties to respond, the present situation of having so many unsolicited proposals in hand could have been avoided. These proposals prepared to suit our requirements could have been then evaluated and the best offer selected on competitive basis without allowing any external hands to influence. Sadly, Sri Lanka lost that opportunity.

By Dinasena Ratugamage Courtesy The Island

Former Defence Secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa should stop dreaming of the executive presidency because the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) would ensure that he would never secure it, TNA Kilinochchi District MP, S. Shritharan told media yesterday.

The TNA would also not allow Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa to become the President, the MP said. “We decided to support the budget 2019 because we want to prevent Mahinda Rajapaksa from returning to power,” he said.

Certain sections were trying to overthrow this government and come into power by defeating the budget, Shritharan said. However the TNA would not allow such an eventuality to happen, he added.

“A large number of people want Mahinda Rajapaksa to become President, but this will never happen as long as we are here,” he said.

Gotabaya has declared his willingness to contest the presidential election and it has been widely speculated that Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) is likely to field former Defence Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as their Presidential candidate.

Courtesy Adaderana

Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) says the controversy surrounding the proposed USD 3.85 billion oil refinery in Mirijjawila, Hambantota, could have a negative impact on Sri Lanka’s efforts to remove itself from the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) ‘Grey List’ of countries vulnerable to money laundering and terrorism financing. 

The main investor in the project, the Singapore based ‘investment vehicle’ Silver Park International PTE Ltd, is a company controlled by the family of Tamil Nadu politician and former Indian Union Minister Dr. S. Jagathrakshakan, whose business interests have previously been implicated by Indian authorities and the media in several alleged corruption scandals, the statement said. 

Of the 40 FATF recommendations which set the international standards on combating money laundering, recommendation 12 requires that reasonable measures are taken to ascertain the source of wealth and source of funds in transactions involving politically exposed persons, it said. 

TISL Executive Director Asoka Obeyesekere said, In light of the efforts being made by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka to get off the FATF Grey List, it is essential that the Board of Investment conducts enhanced due diligence on the Silver Park International investment, given that its directors fall squarely within the FATF definition of politically exposed persons”.  

Given the confusion relating to the parties engaged in the project, TISL also called on all state agencies to ensure adherence to proactive disclosure provisions outlined in the Right to Information Act. Section 9 of the RTI Act requires the line Minister of a given project to publicly communicate all available information relating to the project, three months prior to commencement.  

Obeyesekere concluded, the importance of such information being in the public domain cannot be understated, especially in the case of major foreign direct investment which will have a direct impact on the local economy. Ensuring transparency and accountability in these processes will also enhance the country’s efforts to attract bona fide foreign investment”.

lanka C news

March 28, 2019 at 3:30 am | lanka C news

පසුගිය දා හම්බන්තොට මිරිජ්ජවිල දී මුල්ගල් තැබූ තෙල්පිරිපහදු ව්‍යාපෘතියේ ප්‍රධාන ආයෝජකයා වන සිල්වර්පාක් ඉන්ටර්නැෂනල් පුද්ගලික සමාගම තිබෙන්නේ ආමර් වීදිය ප්‍රදේශයේ බව පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රී නාමල් රාජපක්ෂ මහතා පවසයි.

පාර්ලමේන්තුවේ දී ඔහු මේ බව පැවසීය.

හම්බන්තොට තෙල් පිරිපහදුවකට මුල් ගල තිබ්බා. ජාත්‍යන්තර මාධ්‍යයක් කිව්වා ඕමාන රජය ඒකට සම්බන්ධ නැහැ කියලා. BOI කියනවා ඕමාන රජයත් සමඟ තවම සාකච්ඡාමය අවස්ථාවේ ඉන්නවා කියලා. මේ මුල්ගලක් තියන්නේ සාකච්ඡාමය අවස්ථාවේ ඉන්නකොට.

සිල්වර්පාක් ඉන්ටර්නැෂනල් ප්‍රයිවට් ලිමිටඩ් කියලා සමාගමක් එක්ක ගනුදෙනුවක් කරනවා. ඒත් එක්කම අනෙක් පැත්තෙන්, සිල්වර්පාක් පෙට්‍රොලියම් ප්‍රයිවට් ලිමිටඩ් කියලා තව සමාගමක් ඔබ තමුන්නාන්සේලා පිහිටුවලා තියෙනවා. දැන් මේ සිල්වර්පාක් ඉන්ටර්නැෂනල් කියන සමාගම ආමර්වීදියේ කඩයක් ළඟ තියෙනවා තියලා තමයි අපිට දැනගන්න ලැබිලා තියෙන්නෙ. සිල්වර්පාක් පෙට්‍රොලියම් කියන එක තිඹිරිගස්යායේ අපාර්ට්මන්ට් එකක තමයි සමාගම රෙජිස්ටර් කරලා තියෙන්නේ. යනුවෙන් මන්ත්‍රීවරයා මෙහිදී වැඩිදුරටත් කියා සිටියේය.

KAMALIKA  PIERIS

BAMBALAPITIYA FLATS

The cabinet has approved a multi-million dollar project to replace the Bambalapitiya Flats, a significant landmark in Colombo, lying on very valuable land. A plan was, floated in 2014 to redevelop the ten-acre land on which the Bambalapitiya flats now stand. UTL Global Projects registered in Singapore made the proposal.  A tripartite MOU was signed between UTL Global Projects, Engineering Projects India and the National Housing Development Authority for this project. The land belongs to the National Housing Development Authority (NHDA). The project did not materialize.

The project was revived, when Yahapalana came in, on the recommendation of Housing and Construction Minister Sajith Premadasa. The Bambalapitiya redevelopment project was ‘a novel and complex project, the likes of which had never been undertaken in this country’, he said.

Cabinet approval was obtained and NHDA wrote to Global Project Pvt and Engineering Projects India Pvt that the Cabinet had approved their joint proposal and they should  incorporate a company in Sri Lanka for this project. Thereupon, a company called City Square Projects was duly incorporated in Sri Lanka. A formal agreement was entered into between the BOI and City Square Projects. Though Engineering Projects India was listed as a partner in the agreement, the agreement was signed only by  the directors of City Square.

In March 2017, on Cabinet approval, National Housing Development Authority signed an agreement with City Square Projects, with the proviso that they had to bring USD 10 million into the country within four to six weeks of signing the agreement.   Once the final project documents are signed, the land on which the Bambalapitiya flats stand will be transferred to City Square Projects  on a 99-year lease.

Minister Sajith Premadasa recommended in November 2016 that a gazette notification be issued immediately to acquire the Bambalapitiya flats site under the Condominium Management Authority law which provides for any condominium that is over 40 years old to be acquired. He further recommended that the Bambalapitiya flats be declared an ‘Urban development Site’ under Section 2 of the Urban Development Projects (Special Provisions) Act No: 2 of 1980. This provision disallows appeals to courts regarding the acquisition of property for development projects.

C.A.Chandraprema of the Island  examined the   Bambalapitiya project agreement and alerted readers to its very serious implications. He pointed out that the main investor, UTL Global Projects  had been incorporated in Singapore only in February 2011 and   its owners are three Indian nationals, Koorapati Premalatha Rani, Meena Pooja and Prashanth Koorapati, members of one family.

They don’t have any known background in construction or real estate development and are not known to have the financial resources to be able to handle a project of this nature either observed Chandraprema.   They definitely lack the financial standing to undertake a project of this magnitude,

City Square Projects is  not a joint project of  Global and Engineering Projects India.  It is   owned by Global alone.  Koorapati confirmed in a letter to the Chairman of the Project Steering Committee of the Bambalapitiya flats redevelopment project”, Ministry of Housing and Construction,  that City Square Projects (Pvt) Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of UTL Global Projects Pte Ltd, through its holding company Centennial Holdings” Singapore.

Global Projects,  is just three members of the same family of Indian nationals, with no background in construction or real estate development or the financial resources to be able to handle a project of this nature, repeated Chandraprema. It is a family owned company with no history worth talking about, 

 It is to a subsidiary wholly owned by them, City Square,  that the Bambalapitiya land is to be transferred.  They are going to get 10 acres of the best land in Colombo on a 99-year lease without paying the government any money.  The government is going to give this prime land, Bambalaptiya flats, to a company which does not have the financial clout to be able to handle a project of this nature Chandraprema again observed. As a result, three Indian nationals will hold a 99-year lease on ten acres of the best land in Colombo. emphasized Chandraprema.

Global  had misled the government into thinking that they had brought in a large Indian government owned construction conglomerate,  Engineering Projects India Ltd as their partner to  finance and build the project. BOI, the NHDA and even the tenants of the Bambalapitiya flats appear to be under the impression that Engineering Projects India Ltd has undertaken to invest 300 million USD in this project, said Chandraprema. That is not so, he said.

 Engineering Projects India Ltd, a state owned entity in India, has extensive experience in construction and real estate and solid financial backing. This company is already involved in water projects in Vavuniya and Puttalam with the National Water Supply and Drainage Board. But the company is not involved in this deal.

Since doubts had been expressed, government of Sri Lanka asked for proof that Engineering Projects was actually working with Global.  They asked, is Engineering Projects India Ltd actually in a consortium with UTL Global Projects, if so where is the consortium agreement. There was no consortium agreement with Global. Instead, Koorapati   sent a redacted version of the agreement between Engineering Projects India and City Square to the Project Steering Committee, claiming that the rest of it was ‘highly confidential’.

The version sent was a consortium agreement between City Square and Engineering Projects India Ltd had been signed on 5 March 2016.Engineering Projects India will take up equity in City Square Projects Pvt Ltd after applying for the required permission from the government of India. Till then they will continue to develop the project as a consortium.

Chandraprema  pointed out that  the dates on these letters show that Global wrote to Engineering Projects India Ltd making the initial proposal only on the day that they had applied to the BOI claiming that they were already in a partnership with Engineering Projects India Ltd   for redeveloping the Bambalapitiya flats.     He also pointed out that even if Engineering Projects India Ltd joins City Square Projects later. That too means nothing. They have only a very limited role and the three Indian nationals who own  Global will still be calling all the shots.

Chandraprema observed that the document sent by Koorapati   did not say anything about the financial commitment of Engineering Projects India Ltd to the project. This is a significant omission. The redacted version of the consortium agreement simply  states that Engineering Projects India Ltd will ‘endeavour’ to find a third party to provide the working capital for the project. That does not indicate a financial commitment.

The total project is estimated to cost 500 Million USD. But, Koorapati’s letter to the Project Steering Committee clearly indicates that they do not know where the money for the project is going to come from, said Chandraprema. They have mentioned that the money will have to be raised from third parties but no such third parties have been identified .

Engineering Projects India is a government owned business undertaking. It cannot invest any money overseas without the approval of the Indian Cabinet and other agencies such as the Reserve Bank of India. There is no guarantee that Engineering Projects India Ltd will get the Indian government’s permission for this project  

If the Indian government does not give Engineering Projects permission to go ahead with the project they will drop out of it automatically. Then, three individuals, Koorapati Premalatha Rani, Meena Pooja and Prashanth Koorapati who own  Global Projects  and City Square will be left holding a 99-year lease on 10 acres of land in Bambalapitiya without paying a cent to the government,  said Chandraprema.

 Chandraprema also observed that there are certain legal implications in the agreements signed. According to the requirements of the BOI, both UTL Global Projects Pte Ltd and Engineering Projects India Ltd should have been the joint owners of City Square Projects. The BOI agreement that was signed on 22 June 2016 said that the project would be a joint venture between UTL Global Projects Pte Ltd and Engineering Projects India Ltd.  The agreement between City Square Projects (Pvt) Ltd and the NHDA is also based on the premise that UTL Global Projects Pte Ltd and Engineering Projects India Ltd had jointly formed City Square (Pvt.) Ltd.

However, Engineering Projects India Ltd is not in a consortium with UTL Global Projects     and it is not part of City Square. This is a clear violation of BOI rules. Global’s  argument that even though Engineering Projects India Ltd does not have a consortium agreement with Global, they do have an agreement with City Square,  is  also wrong. The consortium agreement should be between UTL Global Projects Pte Ltd and Engineering Projects India not between Engineering Projects India Ltd and City Square (Pvt.) Ltd.

The government has imposed the condition on City Square that within 4 to 6 weeks of signing the agreement with the NHDA, they will have to bring in USD 10 million to the country. This will not be difficult because City Square Projects (Pvt) Ltd will be able to use that very agreement to obtain money by pledging the land as collateral, said Chandraprema.

City Square Projects Pvt Ltd has said that they have not pledged or mortgaged the land, continued Chandraprema. They haven’t done so because the land has not been transferred to them yet. But the moment the land is transferred to them, that is exactly what is going to happen. Once the land is transferred to City Square Projects Pvt Ltd,  the land may be used as collateral to raise the capital that UTL Global Projects Pte Ltd obviously lacks.

 We have ‘incontrovertible proof’ that what Global intends doing once they get their hands on the land is to mortgage it to third parties, said Chandraprema. They will do so without paying a cent to the government of Sri Lanka. A new group will be left in possession of the Bambalapitiya land for 99 years and the residents of the present Bambalapitiya flats and the government of Sri Lanka will be left high and dry.

The residents of the Bambalapitiya flats have voiced their strong opposition to the project and point out that neither the government nor the developers have had transparent discussions with them on the project. Minister Champika Ranawaka had filed a Cabinet observation in 2016, stating that the financial credentials of the developers did not appear to have been checked and that a proper feasibility study of the project had not been carried out. There is still no feasibility report for the project said Chandraprema in 2017.

Everything about these project smacks of a giant scam said Chandraprema. There is something seriously fishy in this whole business. Anyone can see from a mile away that this is not a project that is ever going to be completed. The fact that the government has not shown any interest in seeing the full agreement signed between City Square and Engineering Projects shows that powerful figures in the government are in on the deal. Such indifference on the part of the government can only be the result of massive kickbacks. 

The government of Sri Lanka should reconsider this project.  Funding for the project should be available upfront before any approvals are granted or the land handed over, said Chandraprema. All agreements entered into by the BOI and the NHDA with UTL Global Projects Pte Ltd or its wholly owned subsidiary City Square Projects (Pvt) Ltd should be suspended and reviewed because they have clearly attempted to deceive the government of Sri Lanka without disclosing material facts.

HAMBANTOTA REFINERY

As this essay goes to press,  a second ‘Bambalapitiya  flat’ issue  is taking place in Hambantota, where   the Yahapalana government has announced  in March 2019, the construction of a USD 4  billion oil refinery at Hambantota on  400acres of land, by Silver Park International  and the Omani government. It was to be the biggest foreign investment in Sri Lanka since Independence. This would provide 565 Sri Lankans direct employment and up to 185 jobs for foreigners.

The original investment proposal was submitted to the BOI in November 10, 2016, as a joint venture between Silver Park International (Pvt) Ltd, Singapore, and the Ministry of Oil and Gas of the Sultanate of Oman”. A Cabinet memorandum dated February 15 2019 reaffirms that Silver Park International (Pte) Ltd of Singapore will hold 70 percent of shares while 30 percent will be owned by the Ministry of Oil and Gas of Sultanate of Oman”.

 A letter dated March 12 2019 from the BOI to Silver Park International in Singapore also refers to an undertaking from Silver Park to set up a project for 10 MMPTA Green Field oil refinery in Hambantota for export market in collaboration with the Sultanate of Oman Ministry of Oil and Gas.

As soon as the deal was announced by the government of Sri Lanka, Oman swiftly denied it had any part in the multibillion dollar investment. Omani Government said it had not invested any funds, nor agreed to invest any money so far on the project. That leaves Silver Park,  like Global, as the star of the show. Thanks to the publicity, the identity of the investors have aroused local interest.

 Silver Park International (Pte) Ltd was incorporated on June 15, 2017, in Singapore. It was, therefore, set up several months after the first investment proposal was submitted to the BOI in Sri Lanka. The directors of Silver Park, like Global, are confined to one family. They are Jegath Rakshagan Sundeep Anand, Jagathrakshakan Sri Nisha and Jagathrakshakan Anusuya. They are the son, daughter and wife of S. Jagathrakshakan, a Tamilnadu politician based in Chennai.

S. Jagathrakshakan has held positions as Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, Minister of State for New and Renewable Energy and Minister of State for Commerce and Industry.  He has been embroiled in several allegations. It is widely reported that his personal wealth increased by 12 times in just two years from INR 5.9 crore in 2009 to INR 70 crore in 2011. Media reports said this was the highest percentage increase for assets among all ministers in the central Cabinet during that period.  Jagathrakshakan’s name was also associated with the infamous Indian coal allocation scam too.

 This ‘Silver Park’ family have incorporated two companies in Sri Lanka. These two companies are Silver Park International (Pvt) Ltd and Silver Park Petroleum (Pvt) Ltd. There are no Omani nationals or representatives in either company,   reported Namini Wijedasa.

Silver Park International in Sri Lanka was set up on September 10, 2018. Its directors are the same family, Jegath Rakshagan Sundeep Anand, Jagathrakshakan Sri Nisha, Jagathrakshakan Anusuya plus a fourth, Kunasingam Jasoharan of Mullaitivu.

 The stated objectives  of this company are to carry out the business of manufacturing, importing, exporting, distributorship, intending, brokering, real estates, transportation and wholesale trade; to participate in Government tenders in order to implement the same project and to carry on bulk or wholesale trading activities; to operate as an investment holding company; to act as an agent or representative to any other person or companies; and to carry out any other business whatsoever the company may decide at a directors’ meeting”.

Silver Park Petroleum” was formed on February 21,2019,  six days after Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrama submitted his latest Cabinet paper on the subject. Its  directors are the same  family, Sundeep Anand, Sri Nisha, Kunasingham Jasoharan  with a fourth, Dr T.A.G. Gunasekara. ‘Silver Park Petroleum’” was created  to build a 10 MMPTA (million metric tons per annum) petroleum refinery for exports at Hambantota.

The foundation stone was laid for the new oil refinery on 24.3.19 at Hambantota. The Omani Oil and Gas Minister who was visiting Sri Lanka  was also there. The Omani Minister had  met Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe at Temple Trees earlier on. The meeting at Temple Trees was more in the nature of a courtesy call, a spokesman for the Prime Minister’s office said.. No specifics were discussed. This  possible ‘scam’ has been incorrectly  compared to the Volkswagen deal, it is nothing like the Volkswagen deal. It is  like  the Bambalapitiya deal.

APPOINTMENT OF  HIGH COURT JUDGE KANNAN

Ramanathan Kannan   who had failed to get a position as Magistrate was appointed a high court judge by the Yahapalana government, over the heads of all the others on the list. Three legal bodies, the Judicial Services Commission, the Judicial Service Association and the Bar Association of Sri Lanka, reacted strongly to this appointment. They all  said it was irregular. The senior-most judge who should have been promoted was, D. L. A. Manaf, District Judge of Vavuniya. D. L. A. Manaf was promoted to the High Court in March 2017.

Judicial Services Commission (JSC) wrote to the President withdrawing its earlier recommendation that Ramanathan Kannan be appointed a High Court Judge.  JSC said that if the BASL had made ‘no proper recommendation’ on the matter, the recommendation that the JSC had sent earlier to the President had ‘no force or avail in law’.

Article 111(2) (a) of the Constitution stipulates that judges of the High Court can be appointed by the president only on the recommendation of the Judicial Services Commission. This retraction by the JSC therefore made Ramanathan Kannan’s appointment as High Court Judge unconstitutional, said the media, but the JSC did not expressly recommend that Kannan be removed from office.

The Secretary to the President wrote to the Judicial Services Commission seeking a recommendation for the removal of Kannan in terms of Article 111(2) (b) of the Constitution, which provides for the dismissal of High Court judges by the President on the recommendations of the JSC. But JSC  did not make such a recommendation.   JSC said it could intervene only when there is a complaint related to a disciplinary matter. Critics however, observed that once the JSC retracted their recommendation, he should have been removed by the President. However this has not happened.   Kannan l continued to be a High Court Judge.

Judicial Service Association, (JSA), which represents the district judges and magistrates of Sri Lanka, had met the Chief Justice, K Sri Pavan  to discuss the Kannan matter and to inform him of the concerns of the judicial officers of the minor judiciary. JSA requested the Chief Justice and other members of the Judicial Service Commission to reconsider the appointment of Ramanathan Kannan as High Court Judge. Appointing a lawyer practicing at the unofficial bar over the heads of many senior judges who had been serving for more than 16 years was a case of overlooking the rights of the entire subordinate judiciary. A thing that has not happened in recent history.

The JSA also requested the JSC to recommend to the President the removal of   Kannan in terms of Article 111(2)(b) of the Constitution, since the said appointment was made on the misrepresentation of facts. If the need was to appoint a Tamil speaking High Court judge for the north and east, the senior most candidate would be the District Judge of Vavuniya D. L. A. Manaf.  He is a highly qualified judge with LLB and LLM degrees from the University of Colombo and has served as a judge for 17 years .

Judicial Services Association called  a  special General meeting to discuss the  appointment and also the involvement of BASL, in view of the fact that BASL  has no say in the appointment of judges. At the meeting JSA passed a unanimous resolution objecting to the Kannan appointment and declaring it to be an interference with the independence of the judiciary. They asked that the judge be removed and that he be barred from functioning as a judge until he is removed.

The JSA  adopted five resolutions seeking the removal of Ramanathan Kannan from the position of High Court Judge. The first resolution requested President Maithripala Sirisena to remove Ramanathan Kannan from the position of High Court Judge as the appointment has no force or avail in law. Judicial Services Commission (JSC) and the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) have re-affirmed that the recommendation with regard to the appointment of Kannan has no force or avail in law.

Second resolution requested the JSC to recommend the President to remove Kannan from the position of the High Court Judge.   Third resolution requested the JSC to consider not allowing Kannan to function as High Court Judge till he is officially removed from the said position. The fourth resolution stated that the independence of the judiciary has been violated by the controversial appointment of Kannan and requested the President and the JSC to restore and uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary.

The last resolution requested the JSC to refrain from recommending nominations submitted to them from the unofficial bar for appointing High Court Judges directly in future. The appointment of Judges for High Court from unofficial Bar undermines the knowledge, experience and sacrifices made by the District Judges and Magistrates who work under immense pressures and difficulties for long periods of time in difficult areas during their career.

The Bar Association came under the spotlight over the Kannan matter. The Judicial Services Association  informed  the Bar Association that the Chief Justice had told them that the appointment had been made due to representations made to the President by the unofficial bar. This request had then been communicated to the Judicial Services Commission and the JSA had acceded to this request. The JSA  stated that it   had  checked with the Bar Association  and was told that neither the Bar Council nor the Executive Committee of the Sri Lanka Bar Association had anything to do with it. Some elements in the Sri Lanka Bar Association have misled the President and the Chief Justice.

The Bar Association was also concerned. Their reputation was at stake. BASL appointed an expert committee to look into the matter. The expert committee consisted of Upul Jaysuriya, Ikram Mohamed, Romesh de Silva, Upali Gunaratna, Nihal Jayamanne, Ajitha Athukorale, W.Dayaratna, Faiz Musthapha and K. Kanageeswaran. Thereafter  BASL held a meeting to discuss the Kannan issue.

This committee informed the Bar Association that  it was not possible to ask for Kannan’s removal as  Kannan had not violated any conditions set out in Article 111 (2) of the Constitution.  If the President was to remove Kannan without due cause, it would set a bad precedence. Also a disciplinary committee would need to be appointed to investigate  the Judge and his actions before any recommendations for his removal are made. The BASL decided that since the BASL did not recommend the appointment, they would now not intervene to either ask for his removal or continuance. 

BASL President, U.R. de Silva, told reporters that the BASL did not approve of the appointment of Kannan to the HC and that the former BASL President Alagaratnam had recommended Kannan in his private capacity, using letterheads of the BASL and that it was wrong to have done so. According to the BASL Constitution, the President of the Association could not issue such letters without the knowledge of the Executive Committee. BASL made it clear that this recommendation was not made by the BASL. BASL has nothing to do with this. A few people from the BASL acting on their own had gone to the President and asked that this appointment be made.

What  really happened  is this, said Chandraprema. A political party had first approached the Minister of Justice regarding the Kannan appointment but he had refused to accommodate them on the grounds that political parties have no role in the appointment of judges. Then this political party approached the Bar Association. Some members of the Bar Association had then written to the President and followed it up with a personal meeting as well. The President, BASL then wrote to the JSC saying that the Bar Association would like this person appointed to the High Court.

Presidential Secretariat said that Geoffrey Alagaratnam had met the President twice to canvass for Kannan’s appointment, not with members of the BASL Executive Committee but with some outsiders. This was denied by Alagaratnam who told the BASL that he did not meet the President. Alagaratnam  also said that despite any canvassing he (Alagaratnam) may have done to the President and to the Chief Justice on behalf of Kannan, it was up to the CJ and the JSC to exercise ‘due diligence’ before recommending Kannan to the President for appointment to the High Court. 

President Maithripala Sirisena stated that he had not made an arbitrary decision in this regard. He stated that this appointment was made following a written request made by the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL). Mahinda Rajapaksa  said that in the nine years that he was President, he had appointed only one Supreme Court judge from the private bar and not a single member of the private bar had been appointed to either the Court of Appeal or the High Court by his government.

The Bar Association is now a highly politicized body with a UNP parliamentarian once functioning as its President, said Chandraprema. BASL President played a major role in the regime change project of 2015 and was given a top political appointment the moment the government changed. Yahapalana was ready to give further powers as a reward for the role played by many lawyers in the regime change project of January 2015.  These lawyers knew exactly what power they wanted, it was the right to appoint judges. A group within the BASL, seeing that Yahapalana was under obligation to them,   exerted this power straightaway. It is they who nominated Kannan, said Chandraprema.  Kannan is obviously being backed by an influential lobby, said Hemantha Warnakulasuriya.

Alagaratnam just before he stepped down from the position of President of the BASL, had written a letter to the new Chief Justice Priyasath Dep  saying  that the BASL has ‘every right’ to make recommendations to the President to appoint eminent members of the bar for judicial appointments and called on the President to consider the recommendations made by the BASL for appointments to the judiciary from time to time.

Unfortunately, there was no provision in the law to enable the Bar Association to make such recommendations. Therefore, the first draft of the 19th Amendment contained a provision that the Constitutional Council would have to consult the Chief Justice and the Bar Association in making appointments to the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal. This was shot down by the Joint Opposition  but re- appeared in the draft prepared by Constitutional  reform committee , which  gave the Bar Association a role in the appointment of judges to the superior courts.

. Lawyers  for Democracy”  in a statement issued in 2017,  justified the appointment of Ramanathan Kannan as a High Court Judge .There have been several appointments of private practitioners to the High Court from 1974 onwards, one of the recent appointments being that of  Paramarajah during Chief Justice Sarath Silva’s tenure of office. One of the reasons being the lack of Tamil-speaking judges .

In our view, when appointing a practicing lawyer to the higher judiciary, views should be obtained only from the President of the Bar Association and not from its committees such as the Bar Council or the Executive Committee. If the whole Bar Council or the Executive Committee is involved there will be canvassing and open debate, compromising the nominee’s independence. The practice has always been for the President of the Bar Association to make such recommendations, whenever suitable candidates are proposed.”The statement was  Signed Lal Wijenayaka, K.S. Ratnavale and JC Weliamuna, on behalf of Lawyers for Democracy.

Hemantha Warnakulasuriya responded. The appointment that was made when Sarath Silva was the CJ  was in 2007 when the High Court judge in Jaffna retired and no other Tamil speaking judge was willing to go there out of fear, he said. Then Sarath  Silva went to Jaffna, and appointed S. Paramarajah a highly respected senior lawyer as a High Court judge. The Jaffna Bar Association and The BASL was not informed that such an appointment was being made. Paramarajah was posted to the Eastern province and the Eastern province High Court judge was posted to the North. That was a special appointment made in difficult circumstances by the JSC so as to keep the Jaffna courts functioning, said. (Island 3.3.17 p 10 )

You have to look at all this from the point of view of the members of the judicial service. Those who join the service as Magistrates serve in various difficult areas and gradually get promoted. Their ultimate aim is to reach the superior courts, after which they retire. That is their chosen career path. To deprive any one of them of a justly earned promotion by appointing an outsider is a crime, Warnakulasuriya added.

Judicial Services Association said that Justice Minister Wijedasa Rajapakshe had told them that a political party had wanted Kannan appointed a high court judge, suspicion naturally centered on the Tamil National Alliance. TNA flatly denied responsibility,  but loudly supported Kannan. TNA but strongly opposed the JSA call to remove Kannan. JSA’s demand amounted to interference in the JSC. HC judge Kannan is still in office, Sumanthiran said.

President Sirisena had made the appointment following JSC recommendation in consultation with the Attorney General. “Therefore, legally, the appointment is valid,  said M.A. Sumanthiran. Kannan’s appointment couldn’t be rescinded by the President.   The Constitution states that once appointed a HC judge could be removed only on disciplinary grounds on the basis of an inquiry carried out by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) and thereafter on a recommendation made to the President. We don’t see any reason to initiate a disciplinary inquiry in respect of the new HC judge, said Sumanthiran.

Sumanthiran said that appointments to the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal as well as High Court could be made from the judiciary, official bar and unofficial bar. He gave the example of appointment of C. G. Weeramantry from the private bar to the Supreme Court, It is conveniently forgotten that the Kannan appointment was made against the backdrop of a shortage of Tamil speaking judges. Kannan’s appointment was also supported by Tamil lawyers. There was an unusual number of lawyers from Batticaloa at the BASL meeting, ready to defend Alagaratnam, observed the media.  

It is now admitted, said analysts, that Kannan has been appointed as a judge of the High Court by mistake. The former Chief Justice  had assumed that Alagaratnam was speaking on behalf of the BASL.  We now have a preposterous situation where a High Court appointment has been made without the proper procedure being followed. That High Court judge has taken oaths and is now functioning as a High Court Judge. He cannot be removed unless some wrong doing is proved on his part.

The Bar Association of Sri Lanka has no constitutional, legal or moral right to make recommendations for the appointment of judges and that if the private bar is given the power to recommend the appointment of judges, that would corrupt the entire justice system with judges being dependent on the lawyers appearing before them for promotions and appointments, said analysts.

If the judges of this country are going to be dependent on the lawyers appearing before them for appointment and promotion, they will be compelled  to give them the verdicts that they want and it will lead to unimaginable corruption in the judiciary. If a member of the private bar is to be appointed to the judiciary at all, it should never be done on the recommendation of that lawyer’s colleagues.

Judges of the Court of Appeal and the High Court are best appointed through promotion from the lower judiciary or the Attorney General’s Department. Furthermore, if at all a judge is being appointed from the private bar it is best that such appointments be restricted to the Supreme Court. Kannan   in the mean time, continues  as HC judge in Jaffna. (Continued)

Dr Sarath Obeysekera

Traffic congestion, in the Colombo city, cost around one billion rupees a day, Megapolis and Western Development Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka told Parliament, yesterday.Participating in third reading of the budget debate under the expenditure heads of the Ministries of Transport and Civil Aviation and Ports and Shipping, the Minister said that the loss incurred due to the traffic congestion in terms of waste of fuel and time had been estimated by the Moratuwa University to be around Rs. 1,000 million a day.

I predicted this in 2017 !

We should not prohibit Demonstrations but charge for the national losses 

We should not prohibit Demonstrations but charge for the national losses 
Posted on March 2nd, 2017  in Lanka Web  by Dr Sarath Obeysekera

Yesterday I was passing by the road way in front of President’s office and noted some union members of Tamil community holding demonstrations. By 12 noon I was going back and police was trying control another group of people holding placards protesting about something else . Doctors and some medical staff were demonstrating in front Gampaha railway station inconveniencing the public.

We see that it is daily occurrence in our life

We also heard that under the principles of Yahaplanaya ,government is planning to allocate certain designated areas for Demo’s  in order to minimize the inconvenience to the public .We all know that there is massive loss to the country because of loss of man hours of  working people and over consumption of fuel due to traffic jams caused  by road blocks .

There is a solution to avoid or minimize the losses if we carry out following

Government should do a simple calculation of 500-1000 vehicles which burn fuel ( i,e 10 liters per vehicle for 2 hours costing 1500 Rs per vehicle and for 1000 vehicles cost will be Rs 1,500,000 )  .Loss of productive man-hours  ( i.e  3000 people at Rs 200 per manhour costing Rs 400×3000 = Rs  1,200.000 )

Total loss  is minimum  Rs 2,700,000 /= without considering the cost of police force and water used for  cannons !) .You may add another 2,300,000 Rs for maintaining law order including filing action against violators of public peace)

Total cost of one single demonstration for two hours will be 5 million Rs and if one carry on demo for 10 hours in will cost 50 million Rs to the country.

My golden suggestion is not to allow registered unions or political parties to hold demos other than in designated areas and impose a charge of 5 million Rs for two hours –say in Lipton Circle or  Lotus roundabout .

This amount should be paid to National Development Fund.

Total contribution to the national development  fund for a month will exceed  one billion Rupees.  (unions and parties can hold demo’s free during weekends !).

Unions may have to increase membership fees for members including party members to cover the payment charges for holding demo’s !!

I am sure this action by the government will be praised by IMF and World Bank .ADB ,OECF .JAICA etc rather than increasing taxes and price of essential goods .

Dr Sarath Obeysekera

KAMALIKA  PIERIS

REVISED 2.4.19

This essay is a follow up of the matters discussed in the first essay. It is confined to happenings in 2017 and 2018.

NATIONAL IDENTITY CARD

The head of the National Identity Card division was to be removed from office for opposing a racket, said Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE). He had refused to award a tender illegally to a company nominated by the Minister to take photos for the proposed electronic identity cards.  Instead of the company which bid Rs 40 per photo the  Minister wanted  the tender given to a company that bid Rs 80.  The company concerned would collect  a whopping Rs 672 million on this.  The minister wanted the commissioner General NIC replaced with one of his lackeys.( Island 25.11.16 p 1)

VEHICLE IMPORTS

The Finance Ministry’s attempt to grant special tax concessions for   selected few persons for the import of luxury vehicles has been thwarted, announced the media. The Finance Ministry ordered the granting of tax relief for 26 persons who opened Letters of Credit  in their names on or before 26.05.2016, under the Excise (Special Provisions) Act. This special tax relief seems to have been given to selected individuals and not to all who might fall into the same category of persons who may have opened LCs on or before 26.05.2016. These orders were awaiting parliamentary approval.

The Sectoral Oversight Committee on Public Accounts  asked Parliament not to approve  the order. The country would be deprived tax revenue of Rs. 104 million by granting these tax concessions, officials said. The Committee decided to request the Minister of Finance to make known to Parliament and to the country the background of each of these individuals, since the list contains relatives such as father and son, also  several medical professionals . (Business Times on Sunday 14.5.17 p 1)

NATIONAL PAYMENT PLATFORM

Many an eyebrow has been raised by a government move to set up a hybrid company as part of the controversial National Payment Platform (NPP) to facilitate ‘single button transactions’, said the media. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Management (CCEM) had decided to recommend that the hybrid company be formed with the involvement of the Central Bank and the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA). In 2015, Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake allocated from the national budget as much as Rs. 25 billion for the National Payment Platform. 

The project however did not get off the ground. There was opposition. This seems to be a  government move to bypass the banking system in clearing retail payments, critics said. There was the danger of a  private company gaining access to all banking information, if  the NPP is allowed to be formed.

Central Bank Governor Indrajit Coomaraswamy wrote to  the Prime Minister  on the matter, in 2018. He said, ‘I would  like to emphasize that in most countries, there exists only one organization for handling the  clearing of retail payments. For example, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is an umbrella organization for all retail payments in the country. It was set up with the guidance and support of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Indian Banks Association (IBA). NPCI currently caters to a 1,324 billion population in India. It is not advisable to have a  hybrid company [for Sri Lanka ]  with a population of only 21 million.

LankaClear (LCPL) which is owned by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and all Licensed Commercial Banks (LCBs) operating in Sri Lanka handles retail payment and settlement system in   Sri Lanka . Any new proposed payment platform will need to fulfill the criteria of Principles of Financial Market Infrastructure (PFMI), user confidence, security, ease of use and integration with other systems, etc. Further, failing to adhere to the PFMIs will curtail financial and technical assistance from various donor agencies to Sri Lanka and will have an adverse impact on the stability of financial system, market confidence, investor confidence, credit ratings of the country, etc. Considering all the above, CBSL is of the opinion that a new hybrid company is not required and any functions regarding retail payment and settlement systems can be carried out by the existing national payment infrastructure provider, LankaClear.

CENTRAL BANK DEPUTY GOVERNOR

Financial sector meddling was not confined to LankaClear. Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake had suggested the appointment of an ‘outsider’ as Central Bank Deputy Governor, reported the media.  Traditionally it is a senior bank officer based on seniority and experience. (Business times on Sunday 5.2.17 p 1)

MONEY LAUNDERING

 Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake had in 2016 asked for a ‘no questions asked’ policy for large scale remittances.  ‘We will ask no questions in fact we will provide measure to make the investor feel safer’, he is quoted as saying. Central Bank and commercial banks opposed this saying that it went against the anti money laundering policy of the banks. Ravi had asked whether they could at least relax stringent control on foreign deposits or remittance below USD one million and maintain the usual checks for anything above.  Banks said they had to follow the local and international laws on the matter.  There are stringent rules on this. (Sunday Times 17.1.16 p 1 ) 

CUSTOMS, INLAND REVENUE, EXCISE DEPARTMENTS

Customs, Inland Revenue and Excise departments were subject to further interference. The Inland Revenue department  complained that revenue collection was going to be handed over to a private company. Excise unions  complained that the power of the Excise department were whittled away by creating a special unit to do the work of the department. Employees of Customs and Inland Revenue departments protested against the deployment of officials of the Finance Ministry units to supervise their duties.

ENERGY

In 2017, the Anti Corruption Front (ACF) stated that the energy situation  had deteriorated since  Yahapalana took over. Those at the helm of the power sector w were taking decisions severely inimical to the national economy. The ACF  called for reappraisal of the entire power generation plan to prevent an influential few from making a killing at the expense of the national economy.

ACF cited the example of purchasing of coal from Swiss Singapore Overseas Enterprises  at nearly USD 10 per tonne more than the market price as an example. “Each shipment cost Sri Lanka nearly Rs 100 mn more than the current market price,” .”Corruption in the lucrative power sector is second only to the Central Bank bond scam. The country is paying a very heavy price for corruption,” said ACF.

ACF pointed out that the Yahapalana government  was paving the way for gradual re-launch of diesel power generation facilities at a tremendous cost to the country. ACF charged that the Power and Renewable Energy Ministry was favoring costly diesel power generation and that four top officials who had been directly involved in the  Yahapalana regime change of 2015, 2015 were responsible for ruining the power sector today.

 ACF  urged Yahapalana government to immediately review a series of investment proposals to establish liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants. There  were several energy proposals made to Yahapalana which Yahapalana was ignoring. A Hong Kong investor had proposed the setting up of LNG power plants for Katunayake and Biyagama Export processing Zones (EPZs) as well as LNG intake facility at Kerawalapitiya. The proposal worth USD 325 mn made in Nov 2016 had been pending subject to necessary approvals.

Other offers had also come in. In 2016, BOI received two other project proposals from Indian and Chinese investors. The Indian investment worth USD 400 mn was to establish LNG intake and processing facility at Kerawalapitiya and the Chinese investment amounting to USD 728.8 was for Hambantota. Cabinet approval as well as Petroleum Resources Development ministry approval were required the Indian project whereas the Chinese project awaited releasing of land in Hambantota.

There was also the CEB’s controversial move to build a combined cycle power plant at Kerawalapitiya with the intention of transforming it to LNG facility in three years at a colossal cost. This should be examined against the backdrop of long overdue approval for foreign investments in the same sector. CEB was planning to invest nearly Rs 7 bn on the project at a time the government was struggling to meet its overseas loan commitments.

There was corruption in the energy sector long before Yahapalana came in , ACF said. A Canadian project had been held up since 2005 pending CEB approval. The previous government hadn’t been able to secure an investment amounting to US 750 mn from Hong Kong for the establishment of 600 MW LNG plant and LNG intake terminal in June 2008 for want of CEB’s approval. A proposal made in Sept 2011 in respect of an American investment amounting to US 1000 mn couldn’t get off the ground for want of CEB approval. The US investment had been the largest of the five projects and was intended to establish LNG storage and regasification plant as well as 500 MW power plant at Hambantota.

 COAL TENDERS 1.NOBLE RESOURCES

A tender  was called for the supply of 6.75 million tonnes of coal over a period of three years to the Norochcholai power plant, a contract worth well over Rs. 60 billion. The Technical Evaluation Committee had originally recommended to the Standing Cabinet Appointed Procurement Committee that Messrs Noble Resources, Singapore was the lowest bidder. Thereafter the Standing Cabinet Appointed Procurements Committee (SCAPC) had received a letter dated 29 June 2015 from Swiss Singapore Ltd. On the same day the SCAPC had directed the Technical Evaluation Committee to re-evaluate the bids ignoring two of the criteria.

The tender    was thereafter awarded to Messrs Swiss Singapore Ltd, by Cabinet overriding a ruling by the Procurements Appeal Board to cancel the tender and call for fresh bids,  after considering an appeal made by Nobel Resources who charged that the tender criteria had been altered after the bids had been opened.

Nobel Resources  then petitioned the Supreme Court stating among other things that Cabinet had not been informed of the material facts of the case and therefore  Cabinet was unable to make an informed decision about this tender. This was perhaps the court case of the year with the list of counsel appearing for the Petitioner and the Respondents reading like a Who’s Who of the legal elite in this country. (Noble Resources International Pte Limited vs Minister of Power and Renewable Energy (SC FR No. 394/2015)

This is a landmark case because the Supreme Court heard it as a matter of national interest. Chief Justice K. Sripavan stated that the court had decided to go into the merits of the case as some of the events that took place in the award of this tender ‘shocks the conscience of the Court’.

The SC observed in delivering their judgment that the Court had granted leave to proceed in this case even though the Additional Solicitor General, appearing on behalf of the government raised the issue that the Petitioner did not have locus standi to invoke the jurisdiction of the Court because the Petitioner is a Company registered in Singapore which has petitioned the SC without a local representative.

The SC observed that ‘it is essential to the maintenance of the rule of law that every organ of the State must act within the limits of its power’ and that ‘the Court cannot close its eyes and allow the actions of the State or the Public Authority go unchecked in its operations’. And further that ‘If the Petitioner with a good case is turned away, merely because he …. has no locus standi to maintain this application, that means that some government agency is left free to violate the law and this is not only contrary to the public interest but also violates the Rule of Law’.

Having considered the facts of the case the Supreme Court  observed that the Government Procurement Guidelines required that bids have to be ‘evaluated strictly according to the criteria and methodology specified in the bidding documents’. The lower granular size limit was among the two criteria removed from the bidding documents so that more powdery coal would be accepted. Messrs Swiss Singapore Ltd was thereupon awarded the tender by the SCAPC.

The Supreme Court observed that ‘no one, neither the State nor the SCAPC shall act contrary to the bid documents and the Government Procurement Guidelines’ and that ‘it is of utmost importance that all the necessary safeguards laid down therein should be complied with fully and strictly and any departure from them make the evaluation process void’ and that ‘if the SCAPC exceeds its authority, the purported exercise of power may be pronounced invalid’.

The Supreme Court stated that the Standing Cabinet Appointed Procurements Committee should have rejected the bid of Swiss Singapore Ltd for influencing the tender procedure. The Supreme Court determination reproduced, in full, a letter written by Maithri Gunaratne the Chairman of Lanka Coal Company (which procures coal for the Norochcholai plant) to the Secretary of the Ministry of Power and Renewable Energy expressing shock that the SCAPC has disregarded the clause in the company’s bid document which strictly prohibits bidders from contacting anybody involved in the award of the tender from the time of the opening of bids to the time the contract is awarded.

The SC stated that the decision made by the SCAPC was outside its jurisdiction and therefore null and void in this judgment. The highest court in the land had struck at the very citadel of executive power by stating that the decision taken by the Cabinet of Ministers on 22 September 2015 to award the contract to Messrs Swiss Singapore Ltd could not be considered a valid decision.

The SC stated further that the power of the State was conferred on the members of the SCAPC and the Procurement Appeals Board to be held in trust for the benefit of the public. The Supreme Court being the protector and guarantor of fundamental rights cannot refuse to entertain an application seeking protection against the infringement of such rights. The Court must regard it as its solemn duty to protect the fundamental rights jealously and vigilantly. It has an important role to play not only preventing or remedying the wrong or illegal exercise of power by the authorities but has a duty to protect the nation in directing it (the executive) to act within the framework of the law and the Constitution.

 Chairman of Lanka Coal Company LCC Maithri Gunaratne  had flayed the  Special Cabinet Appointed Procurement Committee (SCAPC) and  Secretary Batagoda for awarding a coal tender to Swiss Singapore, which is said to have caused a loss of over four billion rupees to Sri Lanka on an earlier occasion. Gunaratne said the LCC should have sought a clarification from the Supreme Court but the Ministry instead sought an opinion from the Attorney General, who recommended that the Cabinet take whatever decision and went ahead with the deal, Gunaratne alleged. 

 A week later, Power and Renewable Energy Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya    removed Maithri Gunaratne from the post of Chairman Lanka Coal Company (LCC), reported the media. Gunaratne had been targeted for speaking out against those involved in mega corruption said CaFFe. In March 2017, Joint Opposition lodged a complaint with CIABOC and the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) against Ranil Wickremasinghe, Malik Samarawickrema, R. Paskaralingam and Charitha Ratwatte over the Swiss Singapore coal deal.

COAL TENDERS  2

The Secretary to Ministry of power and renewable energy, Dr R.M.S.Batagoda  wrote  a strong letter to the CEB chairman  in 2016 on a number of irregularities in the CEB. The coal tender for Lakvijaya coal power plant has been riddled with irregularities and this has led to losses to CEB. The tenders are handled by the Lanka Coal Company which lacks the competence to do this. This tender should be handled directly by the CEB.

The LCC was soundly criticized. The LCC seems unable to get the suppliers to stick to regulations set out in the signed agreement or do the payments in a lawful manner. In several instances the tender documents has been altered to suit the supplier after the tender had been awarded.

 Further, Nobel resources contracted to supply 1.9 million metric tons in 2015 had only supplied 1.6 million. The loss to Sri Lanka is estimated at 12,500 million. However LCC had defended the supplier saying they could not supply the balance due to the monsoons. The supplier should not  be able to get away with such a flimsy excuse.  The matter should have come before a bigger committee. CEB had to bear the loss.

Batagoda also drew attention to Liberty Commodities.  Liberty  was awarded  a tender to supply 165 metric tons of coal  in May 2015, by a cabinet appointed procurement committee. The sulphur and ash content of coal  had been altered to Liberty’s benefit after the tender had been awarded to it.  This is illegal.  It is also a financial crime. But CEB kept quiet and paid huge sums of money to the tenderer.

 Liberty was awarded the tender again in  September 2015 and the price was altered by the LCC. The contract signed by the LCC was not the one approved by the Tender board but what LCC had passed off as an amendment to a previous tender. That is another illegal act. In January 2016 LCC  again altered the tender  document to benefit Liberty and caused losses to the CEB.

The next tender  was awarded to Adani Global. The  supplier failed to supply 113 metric tons of the contracted 260 metric tons causing heavy losses to CEB.  5 out of 6 tenders awarded by the LCC last year had been full of controversy Batagoda concluded.

Batagoda found fault with the  LCC Board of directors for not taking remedial measures and tangible action to avert losses.  Batagoda asked whether the LCC was needed at all. According to the Attorney General’s report  the LCC wasn’t essential for the purchase of coal. LCC’s future should be examined against the backdrop of its failure to take remedial measures as recommended by the AG.  

SRI LANKA – SINGAPORE FREE TRADE AGREEMENT (Business Times on Sunday 20.1.19)

The Sri Lanka – Singapore Free Trade Agreement (SLSFTA) has run into troubled waters following the startling revelations made by the 5-member Presidential Committee of Experts (CoE)) in their 280-page report. President Maithripala Sirisena has called for the suspension of the agreement pending its revision or abolition, as protests by professional associations, public interest groups and stakeholders of international trade over the SLSFTA grows to a boiling point.

The President’s directive comes at a time when the SLSFTA’s validity under the Constitution is being challenged at the Supreme Court by eight petitioners claiming that several professionals including doctors, engineers and lawyers would be affected due to this pact. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, the cabinet of ministers and the Attorney General have been cited as respondents in the case.

After these mounting pressures exerted from all fronts especially from the Presidential level, a team of international trade experts is now scrutinising the observations and recommendations contained in the CoE report,. The ministry will submit counter submissions relating to adverse observations contained in the report .however  they are not aware of any directive of the President calling for the suspension of the agreement.

The CoE was of the view that the entire negotiation process was carried out without any feasibility and cost-benefit studies from Sri Lanka’s point of view. It observed that some serious lapses were allowed to occur,  deliberately or inadvertently to expedite matters in the process of signing the SLSFTA by Minister Malik Samarawickrema.The Minister had indeed acted without attending to the conditions laid down by the Cabinet of Ministers in its conditional approval granted to him, the report said. These lapses relate to non-compliance with matters which the Cabinet had clearly indicated had to be fulfilled before signing,said CoE ,while making several other startling revelations.

LAYARDS ROAD DEVELOPMENT (Sunday Times 4.3.18)

The Megapolis Minister has issued a gazette notification, permitting mixed development on the eastern side of Layards Road in Colombo 5, including a section which is at the centre of a legal dispute between a condominium builder and several residents.

The proposed ‘Blue Ocean Layards Road’ is advertised online by the developer as a luxury apartment complex of 14 storeys. But in June 2017, eleven residents of Layards Road filed a petition seeking to quash any preliminary planning clearance issued to Blue Ocean Breeze (Pvt) Ltd or D D Enterprises (Pvt) Ltd by the Urban Development Authority (UDA) or the Colombo Municipality to erect a building of more than five floors

.The basis of the legal challenge was that the plot on which Blue Ocean was putting up the highrise is a ‘Special Primary Residential Zone’ under the 2008 City of Colombo Development Plan (Amendment). The number of storeys allowed within such an area is five or ground plus four floors.

In January this year, the residents once again petitioned the Court of Appeal for an interim order to prevent the developers from starting construction after learning that work was to begin soon. They sought a writ of prohibition to prevent the UDA or the municipality from issuing a fresh preliminary planning clearance or building permit for a construction exceeding five floors. They also want a writ of mandamus compelling the UDA or the municipality to demolish an unauthorised construction” should the developers proceed with the project, especially if it exceeds five floors.

But in a gazette dated January 18, 2018, Minister Champika Ranawaka (who also holds the portfolio of Western Development) has designated the front lots along the eastern side of Layards Road to be a ‘Mixed Development Zone’. This allows for the construction of offices, apartments, entertainment facilities and shops. The Minister’s signature on the gazette is dated July 14, 2017, not long after the residents took the matter to court.The gazette gives effect to a revision of the City of Colombo Development Plan.

 The Urban Development Authority Law empowers the Minister to carry out periodic changes. The amendment now allows Blue Ocean to proceed with its project.The UDA rejected any suggestion that the amendment was introduced to favour a particular developer. But Chairman admitted that Blue Ocean made a request to implement the project in the Special Primary Residential Zone.

The developer pointed out that one side [western] of Layards Road is designated a Mixed Development Zone while the other side [eastern] is a Special Primary Residential Zone,”  he said. The street is the boundary between the two and separate regulations apply to each side. However, the land value on both road-fronts is the same.” The decision was not in favour of anyone,”

The UDA followed a procedure. The Act clearly prescribes how any changes to the Plan must be carried out. There may be certain development needs arising from time to time. These are referred to the Planning Committee appointed by the Minister and they make the decisions.” The Committee, on policy grounds, ruled favourably on the developer’s request, adding that the change applies to all the lots facing Layards Road. This means other companies can now erect buildings on either side of the street.The Committee’s outcome was referred to the Minister for validation through a gazette. The date of his signature was only a coincidence”,. And the gazette was only issued in January because it had been lying in files” at the UDA (Continued)

පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රී ලක්ෂ්මන් යාපා අබේවර්ධන

විදුලි අර්බුදය සම්බන්ධයෙන් අපි කණගාටු වෙනවා. ලංකාවේ විදුලි බල පද්ධතියෙන් ජනනය කළ හැකි සම්පූර්ණ විදුලි ධාරිතාව මෙගාවොට් 4000යි. සියලුම අංශ උපරිමයෙන් ක්‍රියාතම්ක වුනොත් ජලවිදුලියෙන් මෙගාවොට් 1700යි. ගල් අගුරුවලින් මෙගාවොට් 900යි. තෙල්වලින් මෙගාවොට් 1200කුත් අනෙකුත් පරිසරකාමි විදුලි ජනක ක්‍රමවලින් මෙගාවොට් 200ක් විදියටයි මේ මෙගාවොට් 4000 නිෂ්පාදනය වෙන්නේ. අපි නොරොච්චෝලේ විදුලි බලාගාරය හැදුවාට පස්සේ විදුලි අර්බුදයට මුහුණ දෙන්න කිසිම විදුලි බලාගාරයක් මේ වන තෙක් හැදුවේ නැති ආන්ඩුව සම්පූර්ණයෙන්ම මේ තත්ත්වයට වග කියන්න වෙනවා.

වර්ෂකට සියයට 6ත් 8ත් අතර ප්‍රමාණයක් විදුලි උත්පාදනය වැඩි කරන්න වෙනවා. 2025 වෙද්දි මේ රටේ විදුලි උත්පාදනය මෙගා වොට් 6000ක් නොවුනොත් මේ රටේ ඇති වෙන තත්ත්වය මොකක්ද. ඒ තත්ත්වය තේරුම් ගෙන වැඩපිළීවෙලක් ක්‍රියාත්මක කළ යුතු රටක් මේ වෙද්දි කිසිම මහා පරිමාන විදුලි බලාගාරයක් හැදුවේ නැති නිසා අද රට අදුරේ. 

 අද වෙද්දි ආර්ථික වර්ධනවේගය තියෙන්නේ තුනයි දශම ගානක. මේ විදියට ඉදිරියට ගියොත් එකයි දශම හතකට ආර්ථීක වර්ධන වේගය අඩු වෙන එක වළක්වන්න බැහැ. මේ විදියට ආණ්ඩුව කියන කිසිදෙයක් කරන්න පුලුවන් කමක් නැහැ. මේකට ආන්ඩුවේ ඇමැතිවරයාට බැනලා වැඩක් නැහැ. ආන්ඩුව පත්වුනු දවසේ ඉදලා විදුලි නිෂ්පාදන ක්ෂේත්‍රයට අත නොගැසීම නිසා සහ ආණ්ඩුවට එවැනි දැක්මක් නැති නිසා තමයි ජනතාවත් රටත් මේ තත්ත්වයට පත්වෙලා තියෙන්නේ. 

මේ දිනවල පරිභෝජනය කරන්නේ මෙගාවෝට් 2000යි. නමුත් මෙගාවොට් 2500ක් පමණ ප්‍රමාණයක් රටට අවශ්‍යයි. මේ ආන්ඩුවට ඒ මෙගාවොට් ප්‍රමාණය රටට දෙන්න බැහැ. තෙල් ප්‍රශ්නය නිසා තෙල්මිල වැඩිනිසා තෙල්වලින් විදුලිය ජනනය කරන විදුලි බලාගාර ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන්න බැහැ. වැස්ස නැති නිසා ඒ විදුලි බලාගාර ක්‍රියාත්මක වෙන්නේ නැහැ. නොරොච්චෝලේ පොඩි බිදවැටීමක් වුනොත් ඒකත් විදුලි පද්ධතියට එකතු කරන්න බැහැ. මේ නිසා ඉදිරි කාලයේදී රට නරක තත්ත්වයකට පත්වෙනවා. අපේ ආන්ඩුවක් ඇවිත් සැලැස්මකට වැඩ කරන ක්‍රමවේදයකට යන අතරම මේ භයානක තත්ත්වයන්ට අපිට මුහුණ දෙන්න සිදුවෙනවා. මේ වෙද්දි කර්මාන්ත ශාලාවල වියදම වැඩිවෙලා. අධිවේගී මාර්ගවල මාර්ගවල විදුලිය නැති වෙලා අවධානම් තත්ත්වයක් ඇති වෙලා. කර්මාන්ත ශාලාවල නිෂ්පාදනයට තෙල් වලින් තමන්ගේ විදුලි ජනක යන්ත්‍ර පණ ගන්වන්න වෙලා. නිෂ්පාදන වියදම වැඩිවෙලා. අපනයන ක්සේත්‍රයත්මේ නිසා විශාල බලපෑමක් වෙලා. පාසල්වල විදුලි ජනක නැහැ. උගන්වන්නත් විදියක් නැති වෙනවා. හැම ක්සේත්‍රයකම නිෂ්පාදන මිල වැඩිවෙනවා. ආන්ඩුව මේකට වග කියන්න වෙනවා. හේතු සාධක කියලා වැඩක් නැහැ. 2001 බලයට ආවමත් මෙවැනි තත්ත්වයක් ඇති වුනා. ගෙවුනු අවුරුදු හතරහමාර නිසි කළමණාකාරිත්වයකින් කටයුතු නොකිරිම නිසා අපිට මේ සියලු ප්‍රශ්නවලට මුහුණ දෙන්න සිදුවුනා. 

හැම වර්ෂකම සියයට 6 සිට සියයට 8 දක්වා ප්‍රමාණයකින් විදුලි පරිබෝජනය කරන ප්‍රමාණයේ වැඩිවිමක් සිදුවෙනවා. ඒකට මුහුණ දෙන්න සැලැස්මක් ආන්ඩුවට නැත්නම් තවතවත් ජනතාව විපතට පත්කරන කාරණාවලම ආන්ඩුව යෙදිම කණගාටුවට කරුණක්. මේ නිසා බඩු මිලවැඩිවීම , විරැකියාව, ආයෝජන අඩුවීම, ආර්ථක සේවා බිද වැටීම ණය බර වැඩිවිම වගේ දේවලට මුහුණ දෙන්න වෙලා. 

දැන් බැදුම්කර සිද්ධියට සම්බන්ධ නිලධාරීන් අත් අඩංගුවට ගැනීමක් සිද්ධ වෙනවා. නිලධාරීන්ගේ ඇගට මේ ප්‍රශ්නයට දාලා අත පිහදගන්න හදනවාද කියලා හිතනෙවා. ඒ නිසා නිලධාරීන්ගෙන් අපි ඉල්ලා සිටිනවා මේ සිද්ධියට සම්බන්ධ වුනු, උපදෙස් දුන්න දේශපාලනඥයෝ වහාම හෙළි කරන්න. මේ වෙද්දි ආන්ඩුව අසමත් වෙලා තියෙන්නේ සිංගප්පූරු පුරවැසිභාවය තියෙන අර්ජුන මහේන්ද්‍රන් මේ රටට ගෙන්වන්න අවශ්‍ය ලේඛණ යවන්න. නිලධාරීන් අත් අඩංගුවට ගත්තාම ඔවුන්ට උපදෙස් දුන්න පුද්ගලියින් හෙළි කිරීමේ වගකීමක් තියෙනවා. බැදුම්කර කොමිසමේ දී යම් යම් දේවල් මග හරින ආකාරයට කටයුතු කරපු හැටිත් හෙළි වෙන්න පුලුවන්. එහෙම වුනොත් ඔය සියලු දෙනාගේම නායකයින්ගේ රෙදි ගැලවෙන්නත් පුලුවන්. 

හම්බන්තොට මහාපරිමාන ආයෝජන දෙකක් ගැන කතාකරනවා. මේ සිමෙන්ති ආයෝජනය කාගෙද. සිමෙන්ති ආයෝජනය නන්දන ලොකුවිතාන මහතාගේ. මීට කලින් එතුමා ගැන කිව්වේ මොනවාද. මොහු ආයෝජනය කරන්නේ රාජපක්ෂලාගේ සල්ලි කිව්වා. අද ඔහුගේ ආයෝජනය හොද වෙලා. මේ ආයෝජනය ගෙනාවෙත් අපේ කාලේ ආයෝජන ගෙනාපු නන්දන ලොකුවිතාන මහත්තයායි කියලා කියන්නේ නැහැ. මොහුට විරුද්ධව ඒ දවස්වල පරික්ෂණ කලා. අපි ආයෝජනයින්ට අවස්ථාව දුන්නා. නිීති රිති දාලා ආයෝජකයෝ පීඩාවට පත්කිරිම නිසා කිසිම ආයෝජනයක් එන්නේ නැතිව ගියා. දැන් මහා පරිමානයෙන් ලංකාවේ ලොකුම ආයෝජනය ගෙනාවාලු. මේ ආන්ඩුව එදා අපි ගෙන ගිය වැඩපිළීවෙල ඒ විදියට ක්‍රියාත්මක කළා නම් අද වෙද්දි රටේ මේ වගේ තත්ත්වයක් ඇති වෙන්නේ නැහැ. රටේ ආර්ථික අර්බුදය එන්න එන්න වැඩි වෙමින් තිබුණත් පියවරක් ගන්න ආන්ඩුවට කාලය නැති නිසා ආන්ඩුවට තියෙන එකම විකල්පය මැතිවරණයකට යන එකයි. 

පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රී අනුර ප්‍රියදර්ශන යාපා මහතා 

අපේ කොටස් වෙලදපොල ඉතාම පසුගාමි තත්ත්වයකයි තියෙන්නේ. කොටස් වෙලද පොලේ පසුබෑම රටේ ආර්ථිකයේ සැබෑ ස්වරූපය දක්වන්නක්. ආයතනවලට වෙලදාමක් නැත්නම් නිෂ්පාදනයකිරීමේ අංශ වැඩි දියුණු වෙන්නේ නැත්නම් සේවා අංශය දුර්වල වෙනවා නම් අවසානයේ කොටස් වෙලදපොල පහත වැටෙනවා. ලංකා ඉතිහාසයේ කිසිමදාක නොවුන විදියට කොටස් වෙලදපොල පහත වැටිලා තියෙන්නේ. දැන් මේ පිලිබදව ආර්ථකමය විග්‍රහයක් නොකරන අගමැතිතුමාගේ උපදේශනය වෙලා තියෙන්නේ ජනතාවගේ ඊ.ටී.එප්, ඊ.පී.එප් මුදල් කොටස් වෙලදපොලේ ආයෝජනය කිරිමයි. කොටස් වෙලදපොලක් වැටෙන්නේ කොටස් වෙලෙදපොලේ කර්මාන්තවල දියුණුවක් නැති වුනාමයි. දියුණුවත් නැති වුනාම කොටස් මිල වැටෙනවා. කොටස් ගැනීම අඩු වෙනාව. ඊලගට කොටස්වෙලද පොල වැටෙනවා. මේ තර්කය අනෙක් පැත්තට දාලා කොටස් වෙලද පොළට මහජනයා එකතු කරන් තියෙන අරමුදල් දාපුවාම වෙන්නේ මහජනතාවගේ මුදලුත් සම්පූර්ණයෙන්ම විනාශ වීමයි. 

විශේෂයෙන්ම මේ දවස්වල ස්වෛරී බැදුම්කර ගණනාවක් නිකුත් කරනවා. මේ වසරෙත් නිකුත් කළා. ඒ බැදුම්කරවල පොලිය සියයට හතහමාරක් පමණ වෙනවා. මේයින් පේන්නේත් අපේ ආර්ථිකයේ දුර්වලතාවයයි. මේ විදියට විශාල පොලියකට අරන් අපි ණය ගෙව්වා වුනත් අපිට ඊළගට තියෙනවා තවත් විශාල ප්‍රශ්නයකට මුහුණ දෙන්න. ඊළගට අපේ ස්වෛරී බැදුම්කරවලට කවුරුත් අවේ නැත්නම් අපි මොකද කරන්නේ. මේ ස්වෛරී බැදුම්කර මිලදි ගන්න ඉල්ලුම් කරන කිසිවෙක් ඉදිරියේදි නැති වෙන්න ඉඩ තියෙනවා. මේ වෙද්දි ආර්ථිකය ප්‍රසාරණය වෙන්නේම නැහැ. එක තැනක හිටලා තියෙන්නේ. ඒ අතරේ විදුලි බල අර්ඩුදයක්. විදුලිය කපන්න වුනේ ඇයි. කපන්නේ නැත්නම් පුද්ගලික අංශයෙන් විදුලිබලය ගන්න වෙනවා. ඒ සදහා බිලියන 60ක් විතර වෙන් කරන්න වෙනවා. ආන්ඩුවට ඒ විදියට විදුලිය මිලදි ගන්න සල්ලි නැති නිසයි විදුලිය කපන්නේ. දවල් වරුවේ පැය 4ක් විතර කපලා රාත්‍රියට පැය දෙකක් විතර කපනවා. ලංකාවේ නියගය ආරම්භ වුනා විතරයි. මේකෙන් පේන්නේත් ආර්ථීකයේ බංකොලොත් භාවයයි. මෙහෙම වුනොත් ආන්ඩුවේ ප්‍රජා සේවා එකින් එක නතර වෙන්න ඉඩ තියෙනවා. මේ ප්‍රශ්නයට රජයට මුහුණ දෙන්න බැහැ. උපදේශකයින්ට මේ සම්බන්ධයෙන් උපදෙස් නැහැ. මේ තත්ත්වය තේරුම් ගෙන රට ඉදිරියට ගෙන යන්න හැකි නව පාලනයටකට රට භාර දෙන්න කියලා අපි රජයෙන් ඉල්ලා සිටිනවා. 

පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රී එස්. එම්. චන්ද්‍රසේන මහතා 

එජාප පෙරමුණු ආන්ඩුව ගම් වැඩපිළිවෙල ගැන මහ ලොකුවට කතා කළාට නිත්‍යානුකූලව කරන්නේ නැහැ. අපේ රටේ මහජන නියෝජිතයින්  තෝරා ගන්නා ක්‍රමවේදයක් තියෙනවා. ජනාධිපතිවරණයෙන් ජනාධිපතිවරයාත්, මහ මැතිවරණයෙන් පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රීනවරුනුත්, පළාත් සභා මැතිවරණයෙන් පළාත් සභා මන්ත්‍රීවරුනුත්, ප්‍රදේශිය සභා මැතිවරණයෙන් පළාත්පාලන ආයතන නියෝජතවරුනුත් තෝරා ගන්නවා. මේ ආයතන හතරටම ව්‍යවස්ථාණුකූලව වෙනවෙනම බලතල තියෙනවා. පළාත් පාලන ආයතන යටතේ පාලනය වෙන මාර්ග සහ පොදුකටයුතු වලට ගම්පෙරලිය යටතේ සංවර්ධනය කිරීමට යාමේදි පළාත් පාලන ආයතනවල වගකීම් අමතක කරලා තියෙනවා.  අපේ ආන්ඩුව කාලයේ පළාත් සභා විෂයයන් සංවර්ධනය කිරීමේදී පලාත් සභාව තියෙන්නේ මොන පක්ෂයටද කියලා බැලුවේ නැතිව පළාත් සභාවට භාර දුන්නා. නගර සභාවේ ප්‍රාදේශීය සභාවේ කටයුතු ඒ ආයතනවලට භාරදුන්නා. අද තමන්ගේ පාක්ෂිකයින් සතුටු කරන්න පොඩි පොඩි කොන්ත්‍රාත් තමන්ගේ පාක්ෂිකයින්ට දෙන්න ගිහින් ප්‍රාදේශිය සභාවයි ප්‍රාදේශීය ලේකම්කාර්යාලයි අතර ප්‍රශ්න ඇති වෙලා. නිත්‍යාණුකූල නොවන දේට බලපෑම් කරන නිසා මේවා දාලා යන්න හිතිලා තියෙන බවත් සමහර නිලධාරීන් කියනවා. අගෝස්තු 31 වෙද්දි මේ ව්‍යාපෘති අවසන් කරන්න කිව්වත් පළාත් පාලන ආයතනයේ ඉන්න නිලධාරියා ඒ වැඩපිළිවෙලින් ඉවත් කරලා. මේ ආයතනවලට නීත්‍යාණුකූලව ලැබිලා තියෙන බලතල ස්වාධීනව කරගෙන යන්න ඉඩ දෙන්න කියලා ඉල්ලා සිටිනවා. 

මේ වෙද්දි ගම්වල අය තමන්ගේ ශිතකරණයේ දාලා තියෙන මස්ටික, මාලුටික නරක් වෙනවා කියනවා. ගමේ කුඩා වී මෝල පවත්වා ගෙන යන්න බැහැ. සංචාරක කර්මාන්තට ක්‍රියාත්මක වෙන ප්‍රදේශවල විදුලිය කපපුවාම දැන් තියෙන රස්නය එක්ක සංචාරකයෝ එන්නේ නැහැ. ආන්ඩුව පුරසාරම් දොඩලා අවේ අපමණ අගයක් ලබා දෙනවා කියලා. දැන් විදුලිය කැපිල්ලෙනුත් අපමණ අගයක් ලබා දෙමින් සිටිනවා. 

දැන් ජාතික ආන්ඩුවක් ගැන කතා කරනවා. ජාතික ආන්ඩුවේ ඉදලා ආපු මන්ත්‍රීවරුන් නම් කියන්නේ ආයේ ජාතික ආන්ඩුවකට හේත්තු වෙන්නේ නැති බවයි. ජාතික ආන්ඩුවක් නැවත හදන්න යෝජනා කරන්න පුලුවන්ද. රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ ආන්ඩුවත් එක්ක වැඩකරන්න බැහැ.මේ ආන්ඩුව රට විනාශ කළා කියලා ජනාධිපතිතුමා කියද්දි රෙදි ඇද ගෙන ආයෙත් ජාතික ආන්ඩුවක් ගැන කතා කරන්න පුලුවන්ද. මේක පැහැදිලිවම ක්‍රමන්ත්‍රණයක්. කඩන් වැටිලා තියෙන ආණ්ඩුවට ශක්තියක් දෙන්න ජනතාව නොමග යවන්න කරන ප්‍රකාශයක් බව පැහැදිලියි. 

මාධ්‍ය – ජනාධිපතිවරයාගේ අනුදැනුමකින් තොරව ජිනිවා යෝජනාවලට සම අනුග්‍රහය දක්වා තිබෙන බවයි උතුරු පළාත් ආන්ඩුකාරවරයා ප්‍රවෘත්ති සාකච්ඡාවක් පවත්වමින් සදහන්කලේ. 

අනුර ප්‍රියදර්ශන යාපා – සාමාන්‍යයෙන් සම අනුග්‍රහයක් දක්වනවා නම් විදේශ ඇමැතිවරායානේ එය දන්වන්නේ. මේක දන්වලා තියෙන්නේ මුදල් අමාත්‍යංශයේ උපදේශකවරයෙක් වෙන මනෝ තිත්තවැල්ල මහතායි.  එයා තමයි නිත්‍ය නියෝජිත අසීස් මහතාට පනිවිඩය දීලා තියෙන්නේ. එක් එක් අංශ මෙහෙයවීමේ අමනෝඥකම පේනවානේ. නේස්බි සාමිවරයා නිකුත් කළ වාර්තාව මානව හිමිකම් කොමිෂමේ අවධානයට යොමු කලේ නැහැ අපේ රජය. සම අනුග්‍රහය දක්වනවා කියන්නේ ඒ අය කියන විදියේ පිරිසක් අතුරුදන් වෙලා තියෙනවා. ඒ සදහා වගවීමේ ක්‍රියාවලියක් සදහා බැගෑපත්ව අපිට කාලය දෙන්න කියලයි කියන්නේ. නේස්බි සාමිවරයා කියන්නේ ඒ කියන විදියේ ප්‍රමාණ්‍යක් අතුරුදන් වෙලා නැහැ කියලයි. 

ඇමරිකාව ඉරාකයේ බෝම්බ හෙලිම නිසා කුඩා දරුවන් මිය ගිය සිද්ධියක් වාර්තා වුනා. ඒකට මොනවගේ පරික්ෂණයක්ද වෙන්නේ. හැදි දෙකකින්නේ බෙද්න්නේ. 

ලක්ෂ්මන් යාපා අබේවර්ධන – බලයට පත්වෙන්න දුන්න අසිමිත පොරොන්දු මේ ඉටු කරන්නේ නැහැ. ඇමරිකාව මේකෙන් අයින් වුනාම අපි ගිහින් බ්‍රිතාන්‍ය බදාගත්තා. මේ ආන්ඩුව ඊළග ඡන්දෙටත් ජාත්‍යන්තරය පාවිච්චි කරන්නයි හදන්නේ. නිත්‍යානුකූල හමුදාවක් විදියට අපි හිතාමතා කිසිවක් නොකල බව රට පිළිගත්තා. යුද්ධයෙන් පස්සේ ජනතාව නැවතපදිංචි කිරීම, පුනරුත්තාපනය කිරිම, ඔවුන්ගේ පහුසකම් වැඩිදියුණු කිරිම කළ බව පිළීගත්තා. මේ වගේ කෙටි කළක් ඇතුළත යුද්ධයෙන් අවතැන්වුවන්ට පිහිටවුනු ආන්ඩුවක් නැහැ. ඒ අතරේ මේ ආන්ඩුව ගිහින් කල් ඉල්ලන්නේ ඊළග ජනාධිපතිවරණයත් පන්න ගන්න. සාමාන්‍ය ජනතාවට මේකෙන් බේරෙන්න කරන්න තියෙන්නේ මේ ආන්ඩුව පලවා හැරීමේ ක්‍රියාදාමයට එකතු වෙන එකයි. 

එස්. එම්. චන්ද්‍ර‌සේන -එදා චන්ද්‍රිකා බණ්ඩාරනායක ජනාධිපතිවරියගේ සමයේ රට පාවා දෙන ගිවිසුම රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ අත්සන් කලේ එවකට විධායක ජනාධිපති චන්ද්‍රිකා බණෟඩාරනායක කුමාරණතුංග මහත්මිය දන්නේ නැතිවයි. මුලු රටේම ජනතාව එක්කයි විධායකය තෝරාගන්නේ. ඒ විධායකය නොදැන ප්‍රභාකරන්ට උතුරු නැගෙනහිර පාවා දුන්නා වගේ මේ රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ ආන්ඩුව පුරුද්දකට වගේ මෙවරත් ජිනිවා ගිහින්  ජනාධිපතිවරයා  දැනුම්වත් කිරීමකින් තොරව රට පාවා දුන්නේ. 

සමස්ත ලංකා සුවසේවා සංගමය. – All Ceylon Health Services Union.
ජනමාධ්‍ය නිවේදනයයි

ඌව පළාත් සභාවට අයත් රෝහල් හා සෞඛ්‍ය ආයතනයන් හි සේවය කරනු ලබන සෞඛ්‍ය කාර්යය මණ්ඩලයන් විසින් නිම කර ඇති අති කාල දීමනා අඩු කර ගෙවීමටත්, ගෙවිය යුතු ගමන් වියදම් සීමා කර ගෙවීමටත්,අලුත් අවුරුදු අත්තිකාරම් මදල් අපේ‍්‍රල් මස 11 වන දින ගෙවීමටත් ඌව පළාත් පරිපාලනය විසින් තීරණය කර ඇත.

ඒ අනුව අතිකාල දීමනා සහ ගමන් වියදම් දීමනා කප්පාදුවකින් තොරව ගෙවීමටත්,උත්සව අත්තිකාරම් මාර්තු 31 දිනට පෙර ගෙවීම කටයුතු කරන ලෙසත් අප සංගමය විසින් අවස්ථා ගණනාවකදී ඉල්ලීම් කලද ඒ සදහා මේ වන තෙක් සාධාරණ ප‍්‍රතිචාරයක් නොලැබීම හේතුවෙන් 2019. 03. 26 දින සිට ඌව පළාත් සභාවට අයත් සියළුම රෝහල් කාර්යය මණ්ඩලය පෙරවරුවේ පැය 04ක් සේවයෙන් බැහැරවීමේ වෘත්තීය ක‍්‍රියාමාර්ගයක් ක‍්‍රියාත්මක කිරීමට අප සංගමය කටයුතු කර ඇත.

2019. 03. 26 දින සිට 29 දින තෙක් මෙම වෘත්තීය සමිති ක‍්‍රියාමාර්ගය ක‍්‍රියාත්මක කිරීමටත් ඒ වනතෙක්  නිසි පිළිතුරක් නොදෙන්නේ නම් ඉදිරියේ දී අඛණ්ඩ වෘත්තීය ක‍්‍රියාමාර්ග වෙත එළඹීමටත් අප සංගමයේ විධායක සභාව  විසින් තීරණය කර ඇත.

මේ පිළිබඳව ඔබ මාධ්‍යයේ පුළුල් ප‍්‍රචාරයක් ලබාදීමට කටයුතු කරන ලෙස කාරුණිකව ඉල්ලා සිටිමු.


ස්තුතියි.

මෙයට,
මහින්ද ගුරුගේ – Mahinda Guruge
ප‍්‍රධාන ලේකම්

හසිත මානන්දුව ලේකම්.

විධායක සභාව සහ බහුතර සාමාජිකයින්ගේ කැමැත්ත සහ ඉල්ලීම මත වෙබ් මාධ්‍යවේදීන්ගේ ජාතික ව්‍යාපාරය සමුහිකව විසුරුවා හරින බව මෙයින් දැනුම් දෙමි. 

වෙබ් සහ සමාජජාල මාධ්‍යය තහනමට ලක්වූ අවස්ථාවේදී මෙරට මාධ්‍ය නිදහස වෙනුවෙන් ඉතා සක්‍රීයව සහ වේගවත්ව ක්‍රියාත්මක වූ වෙබ් මාධ්‍යවේදීන්ගේ ජාතික ව්‍යාපාරය කලක් නිහඬ සහ අක්‍රීයව පැවතීමත්, ඇතැම් ඉහළ නිලධාරීන්ගේ විනිවිදභාවයෙන් තොර ක්‍රියාකලාපයත්, පටු දේශපාලන අරමුණු වෙනුවෙන් සංවිධානයේ කීර්තිනාමය අවභාවිතාවේ යෙදවීමත් මත විධායක සභාවේ සහ බහුතර සාමාජිකයින්ගේ ඉල්ලීම සහ කැමැත්ත මත වෙබ් මාධ්‍යවේදීන්ගේ ජාතික ව්‍යාපාරය වන නාමය යටතේ වන සංවිධානය විසුරුවා හැරීමට තීරණය කරන ලදී. 

ඒ අනුව එම සංවිධානයේ සභාපතිවරයාගේ තනතුරේ සිට පහලට වන සියලු තනතුරු 2019 ක්වු මාර්තු මස 27 වනදා මධ්‍යම රාත්‍රියේ සිට අහෝසි වන අතර සාමාජිකයින්ද එම සාමාජිකත්වලින් විසිරගිය බව මෙයින් දැනුම් දෙමි. එසේම මින් පසුව වෙබ් මාධ්‍යවේදීන්ගේ ජාතික ව්‍යාපාරය නමින් පෙනී සිට විවිධ තනතුරු සහ වරප්‍රසාද ලබාගන්නා පුද්ගලයෙක් වෙත්නම් ඔහු සම්බන්ධයෙන් කිසිවෙකුත් වගවීමට බැඳී නොසිටින බවද මෙයින් දැනුම් දෙමි. එසේම මින් මතු මෙම නමින් මාධ්‍ය නිවේදන නිකුත් කිරීම සිදුනොවන අතර එසේ කවුරුන් විසින් හෝ නිකුත් කරනු ලබන නිවේදන වල වගකීමක් මින් ඉදිරියට නොදරන බවද සඳහන් කරනු කැමැත්තෙමි. 

එසේම වෙබ් මාධ්‍යවේදීන්ගේ ජාතික ව්‍යාපාරය ආරම්භයේ සිට මේ දක්වා සිදුකළ සේවාවන් සහ වැඩකටයුතු සඳහා සහය ප්‍රචාරණ ලබාදුන් සියලු මාධ්‍ය ආයතන සහ මාධ්‍ය සහෘදයින් වෙනුවෙන් අප සියලුදෙනාගේ ගෞරව පූර්වක ස්තුතිය පළකිරීමටද මෙය අවස්ථාවක් කරගනිමි. 

ස්තුතියි!

මෙයට, 

හසිත මානන්දුව ලේකම්. 

(විමසීම් 077-2657400)

Embassy of Sri Lanka Washington DC

The Thripitakabhivandana Week in the US that continued  from 16^th – 24^th March 2019 under the patronage of four Sri Lankan Buddhist Temples in Washington and Maryland came to a close with the completion of religious events at Nisala Arana Buddhist Monastery and Mahamewnawa Meditation Center in Maryland  on 23^rd and 24^th March 2019 respectively.

On 23^rd March, Chief Priest of Nisala Arana Buddhist Monastery, Venerable Gintota Wimala Thero conducted a Dhamma sermon and chanted seth pirith to mark the Thripitakabhivandana Week declared by President Maithripala Sirisena to coincide with the proclamation of Thripitaka as a national and world heritage. The ceremony commenced with the observance of the five precepts followed by homage to the Buddha with symbolic offerings.  The Chief Priest, Gintota Wimala Thero, commended the exemplary leadership of President Maithripala Sirisena and his meritorious deed for the preservation of Buddha’s sacred gift of Dhamma for posterity, which has been passed on from generation to generation in the written form of Thripitaka. Delivering a dhamma discourse on Buddha’s message of universal truth, the Thero observed the fact that Buddha’s legacy which continues to inspire millions of followers has become a beacon of hope for those who continue to seek refuge in his spiritual teachings. The Thero also conducted a meditation program and briefed the gathering on the Buddhist virtues and path of righteousness espoused in the sacred scripts of Thripitaka. The Thero expressed the hope that the world recognition of Thripitaka would usher in an era of Buddhist renaissance in Sri Lanka. 

Speaking on the occasion Chargé d’Affaires , Sarath Dissanayake delivered special remarks on the significance of the Thripitaka Week and its relevance for Buddhists  all over the world. Elaborating further, he said the ceremony organized at the temple is historic as it coincided with the national ceremony held at the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic in Kandy at which the President, flanked by Mahanayakes, made a symbolic handover of Sri Lanka’s application for UN recognition of Thripitaka, to the UN Resident Representative in Sri Lanka. He emphasized the need for Sri Lankans from across the world to commit themselves and rally behind the national endeavor embarked upon by President Sirisena to gain world recognition and respect for the sacred scripts of Theravada Buddhism at such an opportune time for Buddhists.   The Chargé appreciated the blessings and guidance of the Chief Priest and the commitment of devotees present for making the event a reality. The devotees were served with refreshments at the end of the proceedings. 
 
The week – long Thripitakabhivandana Week in the US reached its climax on 24^th March with the completion of the religious ceremony at the Mahamewnawa Meditation Centre that saw a large gathering of devotees in attendance. The program commenced with customary religious offerings and the observance of the five precepts in homage to the Buddha followed by a dhamma discourse by the Chief Priest, Ratnapura Vajira Thero on the historical context of preserving Buddha’s Teachings and the culmination of Thripitaka”. The Chief monk narrated in sequence, the arduous journey and grueling tasks ancient Sri Lankan monks have endured under trying conditions, to record Buddha’s Dhamma sermons in the written form of Thripitaka for posterity for well over 2500 years to date. The Venerable monk also paid tribute to President Maithripala Sirisena for his historic task to make the Thripitaka a national heritage and world heritage, which he said is unparallel in the history of Sri Lanka.  The monk reminded those in attendance of the great service rendered by late Sir Henry Steel Olcott, the world renowned American who had embraced Buddhism in Sri Lanka and championed the cause of Buddhists and the revival of Buddhism, and led a team that designed the Buddhist Flag and opened several Buddhist schools such as Ananda, Nalanda, Mahinda, Dharmaraja and Musaeus among others. The monk thanked all those who took part in organizing this timely ceremony and offered them the blessings of the Noble Triple Gem.
 
Chargé d’Affaires , Sarath Dissanayke briefed the gathering on the tasks that lie ahead to make the Thripitaka a world heritage. He observed being Sri Lankans, we should take pride in this noble cause as part and parcel of our obligations toward our motherland and for the sake of making Sri Lanka the seat of Theravada Buddhism”. The Chargé appreciated the commitment and support extended by the Venerable monks, well wishers and embassy staff to make the Thripitakabhivandana Week a resounding success. The ceremony came to a close with refreshments served to those present.
 
 
Embassy of Sri Lanka
Washington DC
 
25^th March 2019

by P. WEERASEKERA Courtesy The Island

The issue of mass graves in Mannar continues to remain an inconclusive hot topic, despite the radio carbon dating analysis report received from the Beta Analytic Testing Laboratory in Florida, USA., which cleared the Sri Lanka Army of responsibility, by declaring the skeletal remains referred to the Laboratory pre-dates the country’s bloody civil war by at least six hundred years, which take us to the periods of Portuguese and Dutch rule of the 16th and 17th centuries.

A few disgruntled political elements in the North, backed by certain foreign-funded local NGOOs who had been quite confident of the outcome of the Florida laboratory tests, are now clamouring for a second opinion. They will not be contented until some overseas technical laboratory could be made to express the opinion that the skeletons recovered from a construction site in May 2018 are of recent origin, and could be civilians and or LTTE cadres the Sri Lanka Army is accused of killing and burying during the war which ended in 2009. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights as well as the diplomatic representatives of certain western countries may not relax until some foreign laboratory rules that Sri Lankan armed forces are responsible for the skeletal remains in the unearthed mass graves. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights believes that other grave sites might be found in the future and, therefore, in her recent report to the Geneva assembly has recommended that the capacity of the forensic sector be strengthened; including in areas of forensic anthropology, forensic archaeology and genetics, to carry out proper investigations on them.

Students of Sri Lankan history are aware that when the Portuguese arrived in this country at the beginning of the 16th century, and engaged in battles with the local Kings to take control of the maritime region and the hinterland, the poorly armed locals were defeated and dealt with most ruthlessly. They were subjected to torture, mutilation and mass killings causing bloodbaths in the numerous confrontations they had from time to time. The poor citizens who offered resistance were put to death in large numbers without any mercy. Accounts of a few of them extracted from certain published historical records are reproduced in this note to indicate that these tragic events inevitably required mass burial sites, into which the unfortunate victims were dumped. When human beings antagonistic to the conquerors and masters are mercilessly killed in large numbers by the victorious elements, the victims will not have the privilege of individual burials as resting places, but inevitably mass graves only deep enough to prevent the stench emanating from decomposed bodies from polluting the air around the areas in which they have been dumped.

Extracts culled from a few historical records, reproduced below, may enable right-thinking, discerning and impartial observers, at least at this stage, to come to the unavoidable conclusion that the origin of these mass graves date back to mass killings and blood baths which resulted from the numerous battles the invading Portuguese had with the ill-equipped local armies in the 16th century, rather than due to the long-dragged war which ended a few years back. ( Mannar island had been an important part of the Jaffna Kingdom, which the Portuguese were eager to possess, especially in view of the Pearl fishery which was regarded as a gold mine in the then trading world ).

The extracts reproduced in this note also include a couple of paragraphs from a 17th century manuscript written in Portuguese by a senior clergyman named Paulo da Trinidade, of Portuguese descent. The material extracted from this account is of greater significance since it has been compiled around 1636 AD i.e. relatively soon after the mass killings which had taken place in the 16th century, and therefore its accuracy and authenticity cannot be in question. “Early Christianity in Ceylon – a 17th century narrative” which is the title of this English translation has been the work of Rev. Dr Edmund Peiris, who was Bishop of Colombo and well known scholar, and a Franciscan missionary Rev. Fr. Achilles Meersman, who was based in India. The translation published in 1972 is limited to the chapters on Ceylon in the original manuscript titled ‘Conquista Spiritual do Oriente’ (meaning the Spiritual Conquest of the East). According to Dr. Edmund Peiris, only one copy of the manuscript of this Chronicle of 1193 pages remains and is preserved in the Vatican Library in Rome.

The section on Ceylon, in translation, spreads over three hundred pages grouped under 56 chapters. They deal mainly with the confrontations the Portuguese missionaries encountered in attempting to convert the local population (liberally referred by them as pagans) into Christianity.

The opposition they had experienced in this attempt at conversion had been the heaviest in the ‘Kingdom of Jaffnapatao’, where the King at the time had resisted proselytization with all vigour; and cruelly dealt with all who disobeyed his command. Referred to as ‘the evil King’ who had committed many heinous crimes, including the assassination of his eldest brother from who he had usurped the throne, the narration continues as follows in chapter 35 – “But the climax of his wickedness this tyrant reached when he ordered all the inhabitants of the Island of Mannar, which was under his jurisdiction, who had accepted the Law of Christ and had become Christians, to be slaughtered. He made no distinction of persons, age or status, but had them all killed by sword, six hundred men, women and children. They were killed in a place called Patin which later on or in memory of this event, was known as the Valley of Martyrs.” (page 179)

Paragraph 5 of Chapter 56 titled ‘Concerning the Island of Mannar, the Christian Community we have there and few items of special interest’ reads as follows –”In this island there is a place called Patim which was watered by the blood of many martyrs. The King of Jaffnapatao, a great enemy of Christians, having come to know that many of his vassals had embraced Christianity, sent a Captain with soldiers, who put all the Christians he found to the sword, without making any distinction of persons, of age or status. Those who underwent martyrdom for our Holy Faith numbered more than six hundred men, women and children. He was not satisfied with shedding so much blood, but sought out the Christians in all possible ways, using all the stratagems his diabolic/fury inspired him. All those he found he put to the torture in an endeavor to force them to renounce the Faith they professed. God favoured many of them during this battle they sustained for His cause and He confirmed them in the confession of His Name, so that they preferred to lose their lives than to renounce their Faith. In memory of these glorious martyrs this place is called throughout the Orient -the Town of the Martyrs. ” (page 260)

It may be worth noting that while the many hundreds slaughtered by the King in the distant 16th century included children; the 328 skeletons unearthed in Mannar in 2018 too included skeletons of children.

As the UN Commissioner for Human Rights believes that further mass graves will be opened up in the near future and to investigate them the forensic apparatus has to be improved and polished up, a couple of further clues are given below about some other sites possibly containing more mass graves, which had come into being in the 16th century. One of them specifically refers to the Mannar massacre. They are extracted from the “History of Sri Lanka, Volume II” published in 1995 by the University of Peradeniya.

“By the early 1540s Portuguese missionary activity on the Indian Fishery Coast had led to the conversion of substantial numbers of ‘parava’ fishermen. In 1543, some ‘paravas’ of Mannar wished to follow suit and invited St. Francis Xavier to come over to Mannar to preach the new religion. Xavier accepted the invitation and on his visit converted about six hundred ‘paravas’ to Christianity. This event was promptly reported to the King of Jaffna. To Cankili (the King) it was clear that the conversion of the ‘paravas’ involved more than a mere change of a religion…. Cankili was determined to check this erosion of his authority, and marching to Mannar in 1544 with a force of 5000 men, he put to death all the Christians who refused to give up their faith…….”(p.108)

“… Sailing from Mannar with 43 vessels and over two hundred fishing boats commandeered for the purpose, de Mendonca appeared off Jaffna port on 27th October 1591. The Portuguese landed at Colombuthurai on the same day and on the next day they defeated the Jaffna army which was encamped before Nallur. The King was captured and beheaded ….To make Portuguese control over the kingdom even more secure, de Mendonca put to death some 800 ‘vadugal’ and a number of Muslims from Calicut………..”(p.114)

The two volume publication on the Portuguese Era, consisting of 885 pages written in 1913 by the distinguished academic Sir Paul E. Pieris of the Ceylon Civil Service, which remains to this day as the only complete history of the period, has in several places referred to the large numbers of people killed in the numerous battles that had been waged to conquer the Jaffna kingdom. Following are some of them –

” … The following day a fresh attack was made on the Temple where de Oliveira had his headquarters. The persistent fire of the garrison frustrated the attempt to carry the low ‘tranqueira’ which protected it, and after several hours fighting de Oliveira ordered the gate to be flung open and the drums to sound the change. The Tamils rushed to meet them and the Portuguese from their shelter opened fire on the dense throng, killing them as if they were mosquitos….”

“The Tamils who had not retired far took up their position close to Nallur, and thither a portion of the Portuguese army advanced, while de Oliveira remained in camp…. In answer to de Oliveira’s eager enquiry as to what the uproar meant, some of the heads which had been cut off were thrown at his feet … The slaughter was very great; every Portuguese soldier had two or three heads to show..”(p.136)

“De Oliveira and the other Portuguese inhabitants were spending the night in vigil and prayer. Their devotions were interrupted by the arrival of a messenger…announcing… that the commander of the Tamils was slain and that they had cut off 500 heads.…A second letter followed; eight hundred heads had now been cut off… by ten o’ clock a third message arrived; 1,200 heads had been cut off…”(p.137).

“An Arachchi laid at the feet of de Oliveira wrapped in a cloth, the head of the Tamil commander… Eight hundred ghastly heads were carried past fixed on pikes, for the rest had been left hanging from the trees…”(p.138)

Do the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Diplomatic representatives of some Western countries, the NGOOs and other dissatisfied elements believe that the perpetrators of the above gruesome killings, committed either by the King of the Jaffna Kingdom or the invading Portuguese, buried the poor victims with State honours in individual graves ? Cannot the skeletal remains discovered so far from mass graves, be the skeletal remains of the above confrontations to secure the Jaffna Kingdom, apart from those massacred by the King for embracing a new Faith ?

These tragic events which occurred several centuries ago have been highlighted only to correct a mischievous, distorted view forced on the gullible elements and to expose the well-designed canard jointly crafted by local and foreign elements long after the conclusion of the War, that the Mannar mass grave is the work of the Sri Lanka Army which brought to an end the uprising of the LTTE, widely referred to in the West as the most ruthless terrorist group in the world.

The only mass grave resulting from the war waged against the terrorists, which the public are aware of, is the mass grave into which the bodies of 600 police officers attached to several police stations in the Eastern Province, who had been made to surrender had been were brutally killed by spraying machine gun bullets to the back of their heads by the LTTE and dumped on the 11th of June 1990 off the jungles in Trincomalee area. As the bodies of victims are reported to have been burnt after spraying oil on them in a Valley of Death, it may be that most of the skeletons may have been reduced to ashes. When the UN High Commissioner for refugees recently referred to the possibility of further mass graves being opened up, it is doubted as to whether this site too was at the back of her mind.

As no reference has been made by any international human rights activists or even by the local NGOOs about this gruesome mass murder, it may be that this incident may not be recorded in any of the files or records maintained in the UN agencies. Even if records exist, the UN investigators have the convenient excuse not to probe as their mandate is limited to probe into war crimes “committed during the last stages of the conflict”. The year 1990 was 19 years before the war came to an end.

At least now, in the face of the rich and cast-iron evidence as listed above; the weeping NGOOs, disgruntled elements in the North, the several foreign diplomat-uncles and other foreign foster parents concerned, who are weeping buckets of tears regarding the alleged blatant violation of human rights by the Sri Lanka Army, should stop chasing a mirage and select some other issue to keep themselves gainfully occupied.

By Shamindra Ferdinando Courtesy The Island

UPFA MP Dullas Alahapperuma on Monday (March 25) said that the denial of a visa to Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka to attend the United Nations was as wrong as denying Lt. Colonel Ratnapriya Bandu an opportunity to visit Geneva, Switzerland.

The Switzerland embassy, in Colombo, denied a visa to Ratnapriya Bandu invited by an Australia based civil society group to participate in a side-event in Geneva. Ratnapriya Bandu captured media attention last year due to once LTTE stronghold Vishvamadu publicly recognising services rendered by him over a period of time after the end of the war.

Matara District MP Alahapperuma said so in response to a query by The Island at a media briefing called by the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) at its Nelum Mawatha office.

The Island sought the Joint Opposition heavyweight’s comment on the US denying visa to Field Marshal Fonseka on more than one occasion over unsubstantiated war crimes allegations. This was raised after the SLFPer and SLPP Chairman and former External Affairs Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris explained the difficulties experienced by senior military officers for spearheading the war against terrorism.

The Island asked them whether they weren’t concerned about the war winning Army Commander’s predicament.Alahapperuma pointed out the absurdity in the stand taken by some countries in respect of some of those who had given leadership to the war effort as the then UPFA Minister Maithripala Sirisena, who functioned as the Acting Minister of Defence for two days in the week the LTTE was finished off faced no issue.

Sri Lanka brought the war to a successful conclusion in the third week of May 2009.

Maithripala Sirisena functioned as the Acting Defence Minister when the Army on the Vanni east front thwarted the last LTTE attempt to save the life of its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.

The Army recovered Prabhakaran’s body on the morning of May 19, 2009.

The Island sought an explanation from Prof. Peiris and MP Alahapperuma as to what the war winning Rajapaksa did to counter war crimes allegations directed at the military for six years after the end of the conflict.

The MP said that senior officers such as Majors General Jagath Jayasuriya, Jagath Dias and Shavendra Silva were given top diplomatic positions. The Island explained the difficulties experienced by them and many other officers for want of a cohesive strategy to disprove lies propagated by interested parties.

The UNP-SLFP government in Oct 2015 co-sponsored Geneva Resolution 30/1 meant to inquire into accountability issues.

The Island also asked them what the previous government had done in respect of the four party Tamil National Alliance (TNA) for backing the LTTE throughout the war and recognizing the separatist campaign by declaring Prabhakaran as the sole representative of their community, after the end of the conflict. We raised the issue against the backdrop of TNA spokesman M.A. Sumanthiran threatening to haul Sri Lanka before the International Criminal Court (ICC) unless the UNP setup a hybrid war crimes court as promised in Oct 2015.

Both lawmakers Alahapperuma and Rohitha Abeygunawardena who addressed the media on behalf of the SLPP admitted that they weren’t in the Chamber at the time Sumanthiran addressed the House.

Alahapperuma said that there had been a small group of lawmakers in parliament at that time. Interestingly, at the onset of his presentation to the media, MP Alahapperuma lamented poor attendance during ongoing budget debate.

The SLPP is yet to respond to the TNA threat in or outside parliament. The government, too, remained mum.

However, Alahapperuma told Monday’s briefing at the Nelum Mawatha office that the TNA would certainly vote on April 05 with the UNP at the final reading of budget 2019. The MP indicated whatever the differences over various issues, the TNA would stand by the UNP and help it secure approval for the budget.

The TNA voted for the budget at its second reading on March 12.

By Saman Indrajith Courtesy The Island

Sri Lanka’s total foreign debt burden had increased by over Rs 626 billion due to the depreciation of the rupee against the US dollar between January 2015 and November 2017, Parliament was told yesterday.

State Minister of Finance Eran Wickramaratne revealed this in answer to a question posed by UPFA MP Udaya Gammanpila. According to the Minister, the depreciation of the rupee during that period had added Rs 626.439 billion to the foreign debt burden.

Minister Wickramaratne noted that during the period from January 9, 2015 to November 30, 2017, the rupee had depreciated by 14.6% against the US dollar. He however rejected MP Gammanpila’s contention that the rupee had depreciated to the extent of foreign investors losing their faith in Sri Lankan Treasury Bonds in the wake of the Central Bank bond scandals.

He said that the debt burden in rupees increased anyway when one obtained foreign loans and if the rupee depreciated against the US dollar.

The problem would not arise if loans were obtained in rupees instead of US Dollars, the State Minister said.

By Umesh Moramudali Courtesy The Diplomat

In the aftermath of political turmoil, Sri Lanka’s government will be hard-pressed to manage debt and growth in 2019.

Following one of the most dramatic political crises in the recent history of South Asia, Sri Lanka’s government budget for 2019 was approved by the majority of the parliament on March 12. The 2019 budget was supposed to be presented to the parliament in November 2018, but President Maithripala Sirisena’s unexpected (and later overturned) decision to change prime ministers in October 2018 pushed back the budget. Later, a Vote of Account was passed by the parliament to provide finances until the budget could be presented in March.

The political turmoil, which surrounded the country with great uncertainty, took a toll on the economy. With the rising political instability in light of the fall 2018 constitutional crisis, three agencies downgraded Sri Lanka’s credit rating.

On top of that, economic growth in the fourth quarter of 2018 dipped down to 1.8 percent from 3.2 percent reported in 2017. Although the entire reduction of quarterly growth cannot be attributed to the political crisis, it is quite clear that a very significant portion of the slowdown was a result of the political instability. This resulted in the annual growth rate growing just slightly, reaching 3.2 percent in 2018 from 3.1 percent in 2017. Economic growth continues to be stagnant. This year expected growth is 3.5 percent, rising to 4.0 percent in 2020. Amid this outlook the government will seek to bring down Sri Lanka’s budget deficit to 4.4 of GDP in 2019 and 3.5 percent in 2020 to fulfill pledges made the IMF when the country obtained financial support to resolve a balance of payment crisis in 2015.Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.

Budget Challenges

The 2019 budget was prepared amid this challenging economic environment, and reflects a variety of sometimes conflicting goals. First, the government feels the pressure to boost the country’s growth rate, which has been low for the last few years. Second, and related, the government must try to boost its popularity in light of the presidential and parliamentary elections due in 2020. In addition, the government is compelled to decrease macreconomic instability by reducing the budget deficit; increase tax revenue and the tax base; and rationalize expenditures as a part of its promises to the IMF. On top of all that, the government is supposed to manage massive debt repayments due in 2019 and 2020.

Data from Sri Lanka budget estimates and the Department of Treasury.

According to the budget estimates, the Sri Lankan government expects to reduce the budget deficit to 4.4 percent of GDP in 2019 from the 5.3 percent ratio recorded in 2018 and subsequently reach a budget deficit of 3.5 percent of GDP in 2020, in line with the agreements with the IMF. However, as ambitious the targets are, recent experience suggests that meeting budget deficit targets are very tough; more often than not the government has failed to achieve such goals. In 2018, the budget deficit target was 4.8 percent of GDP but Sri Lanka ended up recording a deficit of 5.3 percent, largely  due to a failure to increase tax revenue up to the targeted level.

The consistent failure of the government to meet budget deficit targets is largely due to issues regarding tax revenue. Over the last two decades or so, Sri Lanka’s tax revenue-to-GDP ratio has become among the lowest in the world.  In 2014, the tax-to-GDP ratio dipped down to 10.1 percent; since then, numerous efforts were put toward increasing tax revenue. Thanks to that focus, tax revenue increased to 12.6 percent of GDP in 2017. However, the tax revenue-to-GDP ratio saw another slight decline in 2018 as it fell to 11.9 percent, largely due to the reduction of tax revenue from external trade. However, the government is optimistic that it can raise tax revenue to 13.3 percent of GDP in 2019 and meeting the budget deficit target of 4.4 percent would largely depend on achieving that. Though it may seem an overly optimistic target, the government might be able to pull it off if the recently introduced Inland Revenue Act results in a significant increase of income tax collection.

Data from the Sri Lankan Department of Treasury and the World Bank.

New Income Tax Laws

To stem the consistent fall of the tax revenue-to-GDP ratio in Sri Lanka, the government introduced a new Inland Revenue Act in 2017 with the major aims of increasing the income tax net, simplifying the tax system, and moving toward a more progressive taxation system. The Act came into effect in April 2018 and increases the general corporate tax rate to 28 percent in addition to the rationalization of tax exemptions provided for both corporate income and employment income. Due to this, it is fair to assume that the revenue generated through income tax will increase considerably.

However, Sri Lanka’s taxation system is very regressive, like in most developing countries, and only about 20 percent of the tax revenue is generated through income tax. Almost 80 percent of the government revenue is generated through taxes on goods and services such value-added tax, custom duties, and excise duties. This means that a large portion of the tax burden is borne by the common people, and those who are rich pay a relatively lower share of their income as taxes. The heavy reliance on taxes on external trade is largely due to the large informal sector of the Sri Lankan economy and a strong industry lobbying to keep up high levels of protectionism by imposing taxes on imports.

Less than 20 percent of the total tax revenue of Sri Lanka is raised through income taxes. Data from 2019 budget estimates.

Progressive steps such as the introduction of a new Inland Revenue Act and the adoption of new technology by the Inland Revenue Department may help to overcome the issue of taxing the informal sector and increase the tax base, but it will take some serious political effort to reduce taxes on the external sector without being influenced by domestic industry lobbying.

Sri Lanka’s Debt Crisis

However, a budget is about not only balancing taxes, spending, and growth. In Sri Lanka, public debt repayments have become the largest element of government spending and the amount keeps getting bigger and bigger. In 2017, government spending on health and education was 1.5 percent and 1.9 percent of GDP, respectively, while government spending on debt repayments was 4.8 percent.

Data from the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and World Bank.

The significant rise of the debt repayments is largely due to the increase of foreign commercial borrowing from international capital markets. Sri Lanka entered international capital markets in 2007 with its first international sovereign bond issue worth $500 million. Since then the country has issued international sovereign bonds more than 10 times. This has resulted in not only a significant rise of debt repayment, also increased Sri Lanka’s vulnerability to facing balance of payment crises.

The 2019 budget is very crucial from a debt management point of view, largely due to the massive debt repayments starting from 2019 due to the maturity of sovereign bonds. Debt repayments amounting to $5 billion will come due between 2019-2022 as bonds issued about a decade ago mature. $1.5 billion in sovereign bonds will mature this year; another $1 billion each in 2020 and 2021, and an additional $1.5 billion in 2022.

Nonetheless, Sri Lanka was able to pay the debt installments due in January 2019 due to sovereign bond maturity without much hassle, largely thanks to the good practices carried out by the Central Bank in foreign reserve management over the last year. Despite the significant drop of the exchange rate throughout 2018, Central Bank intervention to the exchange rate market was very limited. On top of that, the country has been receiving financial assistance as per an agreement between Sri Lanka and the IMF to receive an Extended Fund Facility (EFF). With these policies, the country was able to maintain a sufficient level of foreign reserves and successfully settled the sovereign bonds, worth $1 billion, that matured in January.

The 2019 budget has to manage these massive debt repayments even while reducing the budget deficit and lifting up growth. Large debt repayments mean that the government has to cut other expenditures or raise tax revenues significantly to reach the budget deficit target of 4.4 percent of GDP in 2019.

The government has done well in terms of fiscal consolidation in the last few years. Sri Lanka was able to achieve a primary surplus in its government budget of 0.6 percent of GDP in 2018. However, growth was still stagnant and the government will need to increase it and showcase some development, given the two big elections due next year. By this time in 2020, we will know how politically and economically successful this year’s budget was.

Umesh Moramudali served as a journalist and a columnist in a national newspaper in Sri Lanka for five years before pursuing a Master’s of Economics at the University of Warwick.

Courtesy onemileatatime.com

I’m a big fan of countries eliminating barriers to entry, whether that comes in the form of removing the hassle or cost associated with visiting. Over the past few months we’ve seen quite a few countries shake up their visa requirements, both for better and worse.

It looks like the latest country to adopt a friendlier policy for visitors is Sri Lanka. I’ve been to Sri Lanka many times, and as a visitor with a US and German passport, I’ve long had to either pay for a visa on arrival, or apply for an electronic visa in advance, at the cost of 35USD.

Sri Lanka’s Tourism Development Minister has said that the country will introduce free entry for visitors from multiple countries as of May 1, 2019. At least that’s being reported by Sri Lankan media, so you’ll still want to check Sri Lanka’s official immigration page closer to the date it’s implemented to make sure they actually follow through with this plan.

This is intended to boost tourism arrivals during the quieter months.

As the minister explained:

We will start granting a six-month free visa period from 1 May for selected countries during our lean period to boost tourist arrivals.

As the next step of this program, we are planning on setting up a permanent system at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) to issue visa on-arrival, like in many other countries. We believe this would be a major breakthrough in attracting more visitors from this year.”

With this policy, free entry will be granted to those from all EU countries, Australia, Canada, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Furthermore, they hope to extend this to all SAARC countries and China.

Initially this will just be introduced as a six month trial to see the impact it has on tourism, though it has the potential to be extended.

Sri Lanka hopes to attract over three million tourists this year.

By Prof. Tissa Vitarana Courtesy Ceylon Today

The 2019 Budget comes as the last one of this Government. The people have experienced four years of an ‘open market economy’ and practically everyone in different walks of life complain that they feel dissatisfied, find it difficult to work and live the way they did before and want a change. Before 2015 the economy grew by 7% now it is down to 3%.

This Budget seeks not only to continue the downward path but with greater intensity, when it has failed both here and abroad. Even the USA that started the drive for a free market economy is now forced to resort to regulation by the Government to control market forces. But this UNF Government is marching on to economic and political suicide for the whole country unless it is rejected by the people.

The 2019 Budget presented by the Finance Minister, Mangala Samaraweera (FM), is based on false premises and promises, and will hasten the deepening of the economic crisis facing Sri Lanka, leading to bankruptcy, in the attempt to win votes for the UNF at the forthcoming elections. The LSSP appeals to the people, not to be misled by the FM’s marketing skills, but understand the grave outcome of this budget for the country and the people, both present and future generations. Mangala Samaraweera is the most irresponsible FM in Sri Lanka’s history.

Policy is ‘More Debt, Burden People Not Rich’

The income required to fulfil his promises is not going to be realised. When the income rose by a mere 5% in 2018 can his prediction of an increase of 22% in 2019, be achieved? The obvious shortfall will have to come via more loans. Thus the Budget deficit of Rs 685 billion will be much greater and the foreign borrowing will have to far exceed the Rs 450 billion stated by him. The Government debt-to-GDP ratio that has risen to 83.6% at the end of 2018, from the 2017 level of 77.6%, will sky-rocket to well over 90%. His claim that the Government hopes to bring the load of debt down to 72% of GDP by 2022 is a dream, an ‘Ahas Maligawa’ to quote him.

Election Budget

The third highest contributor to income is going to be Rs 45 billion through the vehicle tax on imports. FM hopes to increase vehicle imports by removal of the advance payment of 200% which is now levied. But this will require more forex (US Dollars etc.) and worsen the adverse balance of trade. This means more depreciation of the value of the Rupee, increasing the cost of living further, and more USD loans. Resorting to printing of more money by Government would also have similar consequences. The increase of tax revenue is not by extending the tax burden to the rich and super-rich ( the 1%, of the population), whose maximum tax slab remains at 24%, but by broadening the indirect tax (VAT etc.) burden on the ordinary people (the 99%). The cost of living will soar making living impossible for the people.

While we welcome some features of the Budget, like the increase in Excise duty on cigarettes and liquor to realise Rs 370 billion, and also the benefits to the people – drinking water, toilets, rural roads, free milk for school children, student training programmes, steps for women’s welfare, increased allowances for public servants and the handicapped, and correction of pension anomalies, the million dollar question is how much of this will be implemented. There are various figures on how much of the promises have been implemented by the UNF Government during these last four years, and some say that it may be as low as 30%. Will that be the ultimate outcome of this Budget, as well? The fact that there is no mention of the Rs 50 daily allowance promised to Plantation workers in the Budget is a pointer (MP Digambaran, when do you quit?).

Crony Capitalism with IMF Conditions

There is no doubt that the bulk of the expenditure will be used for vote catching purposes. For example we all accept that many who really need Samurdhi assistance, under this pretext the deserving Opposition supporters who are getting benefits may lose out to even undeserving UNP supporters.

The rate of economic growth which was 6 to 7 % of GDP under the previous Mahinda Rajapaksa regime, despite the cost of the war, to restore peace and the extensive infrastructure development, has dropped to just 3% with this UNF Government. The FM expects to increase growth to at least 4% with the expectation that Gamperaliya and Enterprise Sri Lanka, together with an increase of industrial development would achieve this. But indications are that these two programmes are merely benefitting the UNF crony capitalists and not the country. And in in this Election year the trend is likely to be aggravated. Amidst much talk of increasing export income, when markets for traditional exports are collapsing, there is no serious attempt to develop industries here, even based on value addition to local raw materials that are capable of competing with foreign goods. 

The need to have modern (Hi-tech) Science, Technology and Innovation developed locally is not really appreciated, though lip-service is paid. The expectation that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) will make up for this is doomed to failure. Since 2015 the FDI outflow has exceeded the inflow. The corrupt, unstable political and economic situation in the country is not going to encourage investment.

The UNF Government commitments to the IMF are being stringently fulfilled – dismantling of the Social Welfare State and the sale of national assets to foreign Multinational Corporations, with draining abroad of our forex (USD etc.). The people and the economy will be badly hit. The running down of State banks and other institutions, in favour of the private sector will cause a rise in interest rates, increased exploitation leading to the sale of farmers’ land and the assets of SMEs.

The high running cost and interest rates have led to closure of many enterprises. The unrestricted open market policies are enabling foreign goods to capture our markets and dictate prices. With local middlemen raking in profits both local producers and consumers suffer. In such a context the Budget rather than improving the life of the people will make it much worse. Election bribes through the Budget will not make up for this.

Courtesy The Daily Mirror

A heated argument erupted in Parliament yesterday between Hambantota District UPFA Parliamentarian Namal Rajapaksa and Deputy Minister of Development Strategies and International Trade Nalin Bandara over the Hambantota-Oman Oil Refinery.

Speaking during the committee stage debate in the House, MP Rajapaksa said the cabinet had given the approval for the project in November 2016 though the Singaporean Company Silver Park pvt Ltd has been established in June 2017. He said 400 acres have been given to the company despite this situation.

Also MP Rajapaksa questioned as to whether an environment assessment study on the project was carried out. It is said that the oil refinery will affect the movement of birds in Boondala sanctuary while the proposed cement factory could affect the salterns. Have you done the environment assessment study and did you consider all these? he questioned.

Deputy Minister Bandara said everything about the projects are legal. The BOI and our ministry had followed all rules and regulations when finalizing the project,” Mr. Bandara said. He said projects would be fully operational in 18 months.

MP Rajapaksa: A foundation stone was laid near the Hambantota harbour whereas the Prime Minister said that there was a rock. No discussions were initiated with the relevant companies. The Prime Minister laid a foundation stone for nothing. You all have given approval for a company that was not established. No environment report was taken. This is an eye wash. People are going to be deceived targeting elections. Who is the investor? Tell us clearly.

Deputy Minister Nalin Bandara raised a question and said: The investor is in India. When the Oil Minister from Oman came, they had become excited.

(Pandemonium within the House)

MP Rajapaksa: Don’t take my time.

Leader of the House Laxman Kiriella: Give him three more minutes. Please give him the time.

Chair: All right, now speak.

Dy Minister Nalin Bandara: They made the harbour for breeding fish. The cement factory will come within 18 months. We are going to convert your white elephant into an elephant that is going in a procession. A tyre factory is in the offing. The first tyre will be given to you free of charge. We are going to establish a steel factory in Trincomalee as well.

(Disturbance from the opposition)

Opposition members:

Sadhu… Sadhu… Sadhu…. (Yohan Perera and Ajith Siriwardana)

Yohan Perera and Ajith Siriwardene  Courtesy The Daily Mirror

Opposition MP Sarath Amunugama, who was a member of the Sri Lankan delegation to the UNHRC, told Parliament today that Sri Lanka did not agree to a time frame to implement what it promised through the resolution adopted in Geneva.

We told the UNHRC that we are not prepared to work according to a timeframe,” he said.

The MP said the SL delegation also informed the UNHRC that Sri Lanka was not prepared to allow foreign judges to participate in the hearings on war crime allegations.

We told UNHRC that the Sri Lankan constitution does not permit foreign judges. We also said amending the constitution is an uphill task as it has to be approved by a two-thirds majority in Parliament,” he said.

The MP said Sri Lanka’s action in Geneva was a success and President Maithripala Sirisena had played a role in it.

The Government’s original plan was to refrain from sending a delegation to Geneva and get Sri Lanka’s permanent representative to represent the country. However, it was the President who decided to send a delegation led by Foreign Affairs Minister Tilak Marapana to deal with the UNHRC. So the President should be thanked for this success and Minister Marapana must be given credit for handling the situation effectively,” he said.

The MP said Sri Lanka should act with diligence on certain matters.

He said the three main countries which signed the resolution Sri Lanka — Britain, Germany and Canada were more or less influenced by the diaspora.

“The diaspora accounts for a large number of votes. Therefore the leaders of these nations deal with Sri Lanka for their political survival though their personal views may be different,” the MP said. (

TNA the party created by LTTE is making a lot of sound of late. It’s a pity that there is no political party or leaders with spine to commence investigation into LTTE-TNA links, afterall LTTE remains banned and TNA was created by LTTE. There is much that TNA must answer and there are many that TNA must account for before TNA goes blowing any trumpets. Therefore, any future government must ensure that TNA as well as a plethora of other individuals and organizations be investigated for their covert/overt links to LTTE. If Sumanthiran wants a judicial mechanism we can most certainly give him one by starting off with investigating LTTE-TNA links first and by all means we would love to invite some foreign judges as OBSERVERS.

On 22 March 2019 TNA MP Sumanthiran at the committee stage debate in Parliament issued a warning I want to make one thing very clear. The GOSL has made these commitments 3 times in writing. But if they do not adhere to this commitment of including ‘independent’ foreign judges in the judicial mechanism, then we the Tamil people will be left with no alternative but to move towards an entirely international judicial mechanism. That is possible and our people have been asking for this, asking that Sri Lanka be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC). We prefer a hybrid judicial mechanism, but if the government, despite all of these written commitments, and the fact that it is possible under the constitution to do so, doesn’t do it, then I think it is important that I today announce to the government and to the country, that we will take steps to move Sri Lanka to the ICC or some other entirely international judicial mechanism”.

Sumanthiran – Sri Lanka has NOT signed nor acceded the Rome Statute and only when a treaty is ratified does it become binding on all states and accession has same legal effect as ratification. ICC is not applicable to Sri Lanka.

Who started the quest for separatism first – the LTTE or the Tamil parties? Good question and the answer clearly establishes that it was the Tamil politicians that began the quest to seek a separate Tamil nation and not the LTTE. LTTE only hijacked the quest & turned it into an armed movement that bumped off any Tamil that went against it. So in the eyes of the LTTE – their Tamil only Nation meant ONLY TAMILS that agreed to abide by LTTE rule of law. All other Tamils were not welcome.

LTTE demands were officially made public during the Thimpu talks in 1985

1. Recognizing Tamils of Ceylon as a nation
2. Recognizing existence of an identified homeland for the Tamils of Ceylon
3. Recognizing right of self-determination of the Tamil Nation
4. Recognizing right of citizenship & fundamental rights of all Tamils of Ceylon

The term ‘Tamils of Ceylon’ or ‘Ceylon Tamils’ is how long?

It was only in 1911 that the term Ceylon Tamils was coined. Prior to that Tamils were referred to as Malabars by all 3 Western European colonial rulers. Malabars came from India and India is and has always been a separate territory to Sri Lanka Therefore, the simple question is how can Malabars from India seek self-determination in Sri Lanka.

Ceylon Tamils earlier known as Malabars have no legal claim to self-determination from Sri Lanka.

The TNA an unregistered alliance was created by LTTE in October 2001 immediately following 9/11 realizing that the West’s ‘War on Terror’ may impact LTTE.

TNA comprised ACTC (All Ceylon Tamil Congress), the EPRLF (Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front), TELO (Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization), TULF (Tamil United Liberation Front).

What is noteworthy are the election manifesto demands placed by LTTE’s political wing the TNA for the 2001 elections.

2001 TNA election manifesto demands are virtually identical to LTTE Thimpu demands in 1985.

a) Recognition of Tamils as a distinct nationality

b) Recognition of a Tamil Homeland with guaranteed territorial integrity

c) Recognition of the inalienable right of self-determination of the Tamil nation.

d) Recognition of the right to full citizenship and fundamental democratic rights of all Tamils.

Separatism did not start with LTTE.

The first salvo for separatism” was attempted during British reign by creating Tamil ethnic political party (All Ceylon Tamil Congress 1944).

Chelvanayagam founded both ITAK (Federal Party) in 1949 and Tamil United Liberation Front in 1972. SJV Chelvanayagam is known as the father of the Tamil Nation

In 1976 TULF and ITAK demanded an independent state as the ‘secular, socialist state of Tamil Eelam’ (Vaddukoddai Resolution)

5 demands at Vaddukoddai Resolution

1. State of Tamil Eelam to consist of North & Eastern provinces to all Tamil speaking people
2. Constitution of Tamil Eelam based on principles of decentralization. No foremost place to any religion or territorial community.
3. Tamil Eelam will assure equal status to all
4. Tamil Eelam will be a secular state with equal protection to all religions
5. Tamil will be language of the State but Sinhala speaking minority can educate and transact in Sinhala subject to reciprocity of Tamil speaking minority in Sinhala state.

ITAK’s 1949 demands were

‘autonomous rule in the North East based on the principles of self-determination and shared sovereignty within a united, undivided Sri Lanka’ (2014)

ITAK is the leader of the TNA alliance

‘Tamil United Liberation Front, of which our party was a member took the historical decision to establish the separate government of Tamil Eelam in 1976’ (Sambanthan in 2014 at ITAK convention)

TULF manifesto of 1977 stated that Eelam would be ultimately established either by peaceful means or by direct action or struggle.”

Prabakaran formed Tamil New Tigers in 1972 the same year TULF was formed

Prabakaran rechristened TNT as LTTE in May 1976 the same month/year TULF called for the creation of an independent Tamil Eelam (Vaddukoddai Resolution)

As you can see both political and military objectives not only were aligned by time but the demands too were virtually the same.

Election manifestos of TNA establishes LTTE links

• TNA 2001 manifesto virtually the same as LTTE Thimpu demands. TNA claimed LTTE was the sole Tamil National Entity” claiming that as SOLE REPRESENTATIVE of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka LTTE had a right to negotiate on behalf of the Tamil people.
• TNA 2004 manifesto sought to accept LTTE’s leadership as the national leadership of ‘Tamil Eelam’ and LTTE as the sole & authentic representative of the Tamil people.

TNA was placed in Parliament with help of LTTE

EU Election Observation Mission Chief John Cushnahan EU report on 17, June 2004 clearly establishes beyond doubt LTTE-TNA alliance. LTTE ensured no rival Tamil party/candidate contested other than TNA (UNP and EPDP candidates were killed) LTTE allowed only TNA to campaign freely in N E districts.

TNA MPs openly attend overseas events of LTTE fronts

They even speak on top of these stages. TNA held meetings with Global Tamil Forum head Father Emmanuel in South Africa on 8th January 2012.

At no point in time did the TNA admonish LTTE for their crimes against even the Tamils.

At no point in time did the TNA demand LTTE not to recruit Tamil children by force to turn into child soldiers.

At no point in time did TNA demand LTTE to stop killings, TNA only demanded for the GOSL to stop the offensive.

When 8000 students who sat the O/L were taken for compulsory training by LTTE, TNA did not utter a word. Where were the children/grandchildren of the TNA?

‘Our expectation for a solution to the ethnic problem of the sovereignty of the Tamil people is based on a political structure OUTSIDE that of a UNITARY GOVERNMENT, in a UNITED SRI LANKA in which Tamil people have all the powers of government needed to live with self-respect and self sufficiency’. (Sambanthan ITAK convention 2014)

Even former Supreme court Judge CV Wigneswaran started singing the Pulippaattu” (Tiger song) after being nominated as TNA chief ministerial candidate for the Northern provincial council

Both TNA & LTTE must share ‘collective guilt’ for every crime committed since the call for separatism converged with the gun.

Shenali D Waduge

Are the demands of ITAK – TULF – TNA – LTTE – LTTE Fronts & India one & the same?

https://www.onlanka.com/news/tamil-national-alliance-ltte-separatist-manifestos-2001-2004-2010-and-now-2013.html

https://www.mfa.gov.lk/the-un-investigative-panel-must-probe-tna-ltte-links/ https://tamiltigeractivities.wordpress.com/2014/10/30/the-un-investigative-panel-must-probe-tna-ltte-links/

By Charles.S.Perera

On the 26^th October,2018 President Sirisena sacked  his Prime Monster Ranil Wickramasinghe and appointed Mahinda Rajapakse as his Prime Minister.

What was his motive ? Was it because he had no other solution  or was it because  he regretted what he did   in November 2014 by leaving the SLFP to become the Common Presidential Candidate of the Opposition ? 

If he did that to rectify that error knowing that Mahinda Rajapakse is a real patriot and a dependable leader to run the government of the  country which is being mismanaged and  being gradually divided and destroyed by an ambition egocentric power crazy  agent of the West-Ranil Wickramasinghe as the Prime Minister.

Then the President Sirisena  was sincere and he had really  regretted the mismanagement of the country and its finance by Ranil Wickramasinghe and his UNP click since the change took place on the 9^th January,2015.  It also means that the President  did not pardon Ranil W-the PM, for once again carrying out a second Bond Scam in 2016, despite the exposure of his Yahapalanaya as a fraudulent set up to swindle the finances of the Country.

Of course the judiciary which is an arm of Ranil Wickramasinghe and the UNP  awaiting the applause of the West, did what the President did not expect and helped Ranil Wickramasinghe and the UNP to continue with  their  changing of the aspects of ancient Sinhala Buddhist  Sri Lanka  as a measure of reconciliation to give the Tamil politicians what they want, and get the approval of the West.

However, this unexpected change of heart of the President Sirisena had a  negative effect on the  opposition, specially the newly formed political party the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna. SLPP which  had gone beyond  every one’s expectation  to become the most popular political party which sealed the end of the popularity of the SLFP, and became a challenge to UNP.

But since the most undemocratic and unconstitutional decision of the Judiciary, which prohibited the President from dissolving the Parliament before four and a half years, Ranil Wickramasinghe and the UNP has settled into continue its destruction of the ancient Sri Lanka to replace it with a modern Sri Lanka with Tamils getting more power over the Sinhala majority, and the West is able to do what ever they want with the country as they have become the decisive force of the future of Sri Lanka under UNP. 

The UNP has again become a party sponsoring a resolution now being proposed  by UK against Sri Lanka. It has now been approved at the UN Human Rights Council lead by Mme Michelle  Bachelet who knows next to nothing about Sri Lanka, except what she had read along with  the fiction  Darusman War Report, and updated by Samantha Powers, Navi Pillai and Zeid Al-Hussain, The President has not been able stop it.

President Sirisen’s powers are being restricted and Ranil , Karu Jayasuriya and UNP have made of him an isolated President without power in the Cabinet and the Parliament controlled by Ranil Wickramasinghe, his friend Karu Jayasuriya the Speaker , Lakshman Kiriella UNP Leader of the House, Mangala Samaraweera Minister of Finance.

The President Maithripala Sirisena  has even become powerless in the SLFP with the appointment of  Dayasiri Jayasekara, and allowing , Duminda Dissanayake and Mahinda Amaraweera  to make statements without the President Sirisena’s consent  against the SLPP and the left by further  isolating the President Maithripala Sirisena.  If the President is sincere about a change and wants to be with Mahinda Rajapakse, why does  not he say so and counter the statements being made by  the Secretaries of the SLFP and UPFA ?

The UNP tries to benefit from every thing putting the blame even on patriotic acts of the President and the Joint opposition. The change of government on the 26^th October 2018 what ever the seven judges of the Supreme Court said was democratic and Constitutional. The Supreme Court misinterpreted the Constitution. With that ,  the UNP tries to profit from it saying that it was the result of a conspiracy.

That 51 days of the short government of Mahinda Rajapakse showed how the country could be ruled positively looking after the welfare of the people. But for UNP  it was the period that reversed the progress of the country. But Ranil and UNP are only  trying  to fool the people  who knows there had been  no progress what so ever under the Yahapalanaya government and that it was the very reason why the President Sirisena changed heart to appoint the man he betrayed as the Prime Minister.

UNP cannot fool the people all the time , nor can the JVP with all their big talks with a 20^th Amendment fool the people once again. They will not even get six seats the next time . Ratana Hamuduruva is equally a traitor like Champika Ranavaka. They cannot change the thinking of the people any more.That is for sure.

But the President Mithripala Sirisena is a mystery . What does he really want ? 

There was a tremendous demand for a Government by the SLPP before the President’s  change of heart in October,2018. But thereafter  this trend has  weakened to a certain extent .  And contradictory statements are being made by Dayasiri Jayasekara, Mahinda Wimalaweera, and Duminda Dissanayake. But the Prersident Maithripala Sirisena has not made any statement with regard to these controversial statements  of the SLFP , and UPFA Secretaries. 

If the intention of the President Maithripala Sirisena in the interest of Sri Lanka is to get rid of Ranil and UNP the dangerous cancker that is eating into the flesh and the system of Sri Lanka, he should then be prepared to sacrifice his own personal ambitions of another period of Presidency, and support a presidential candidate from the opposition supported by the SLPP and SLFP and the rest of their allied parties.

He should make his intention clear and inform the SLFP and UPFA to fall in line with SLPP without making unnecessary demands. The defeat of UNP under any Presidential Candidate should be the primary objective of the SLFP, SLPP and the rest.  It will be difficult if the opposition is divided between two Presidential Candidates.  Therefore it is time that the President Maithripala Sirisena issues a statement of his intention without further delay..

President Maithripala Sirisena has won the respect of the people since he sacked  Ranil Wickramasinghe as his Prime Minister. The Present Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe is a valueless skeleton. If the President Maithripala Sirisena makes  clear his intention to step down for the sake of the one Common Candidate of the SLPP and SLFP and others, he will retire as a loved and a respected President of Sri Lanka for life.  But if he were to contest and  get defeated he will not be able to retire so respectfully and loved by the people.

Ranil and UNP are prepared to sacrifice any historical and cultural values of the people to reconcile with the Tamil Politicians.  And the President seems  to be giving in by distributing lands and appointing a Tamil Governor etc. to the North.  But the TNA has not ceased to accuse Sri Lanka in one way or another demanding their rights with the intention of forming a Tamil only Province combining North and East. 

The TNA  is a child conceived and prepared for the role of protecting the terrorists and be their spoke persons by  the terrorist leader Prabhakaran. They have no right to make excessive demands from the Government and above all prepare the Constitution  for Sri Lanka. They really have no large following of ordinary Tamil people. Those who  vote to who ever they ask do so through fear of the TNA and its members.

One of  President Mahinda Rajapake’s errors committed during his regime was not disbanding the TNA and take  action to imprison the members of the TNA as most of the other terrorists taken into custody after the defeat of terrorism.

Sumanthiram now says that if the government does not set up a Hybrid Court as demanded by the US Resolution 30/1, he would take the Sri Lanka armed forces before the International Court.  The President should not allowed Smanthiran to  make those statements , and warn of the consequenses he might have to face.

This is the time that President Maithripala Sirisena should pounce upon them  by appointing a Presidential Commission to inquire into the activities of the members of the TNA during terrorism and after the elimination of terrorism.  It has become imperative as the TNA which is very much responsible for the massacres committed by the terrorists and even the assassination of Tamil and Sinhala Political leaders and late Mr. Lakshman Kadirgamar.

They now have a  magnificient time as king makers” and the writers of a new Constitution to Sri Lanka. Enough of that. Lets face it, the time has come for the President to stand up and appoint a Commission  to inquire into the activities of TNA during and after terrorism. That will silent them and the ordinary Tamil people knowing that the dogs have been tied”, will vote for parties other than that of TNA, Wignesvaran  etc, They may prefer voting to candidates from SLPP or SLFP.

Dr Sarath Obeysekera 

When Sri Lanka had a lean time in tourist arrivals during war time, locals were treated with arms extended by the staff of all hotels in Sri Lanka.

Brownies are not well treated by the brownie managers as the hotel is collecting dollars .from foreigners .

Now that tourism is booming, many white and yellow colour tourists are swarming in Colombo and other areas.

It happened to me today morning, when I went to a  four star hotel which has a Holiday”  name earlier to collect some Korean Experts who came to Sri Lanka .to work in my yard .

Until they come down to the lobby I decided to have a coffee and a brown toast after my early morning walk, on the way to the shipyard.

Beverages manager at the breakfast corner was told by me that I only need a coffee and brown toast and I have no intention to have full buffet breakfast ‘He asked me to serve  coffee from buffet and I  sat to enjoy it.

I asked for the toast and he said to me as I have touched the buffet, you have to pay for the whole buffet ( May be  by consuming all string hopper, bacon sausages and what not! )

Otherwise they have to  serve a coffee separately and picked the coffee cup which was in my hand and walked away.,I THOUGHT WHAT A WASTE !

I called the hotel manager and explain to him that If it was a foreigner who had to undergo this treatment , he /she would Have given earful blasting.to the staff of the hotel.

 .I also told him that influx of foreign tourists is again causing a complex among our own brownies and  that they started treating us like dirt .

Hotel Manager offered me a free coffee in the presence of the training manager who came to listen to my complain and apologized.

I accepted the apology and went to coffee shop in the lobby and bought one for a wapping 520 Rs to prove my point and walked away.

On the way out I saw the Waitress with a  full tray of coffee which was hopefully complementary ,but my ego and disgust  made me to tell her to consume it herself

So Brownies need to be weary of   SO Sri Lankan change of attitude as we are dying for Dollars

Dr Sarath Obeysekera 

අද (25) දින මාධ්‍ය හමුවට සහභාගි වු නියෝජිතයින් මහාචාර්ය ජී. එල්. පීරිස් මහතා පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රී රෝහිත අබේවර්ධන මහතා

2015 ජනවාරි 8 වැනිදා ඉදන් මේ වනතුරු ආන්ඩුව රටට එක මෙගාවොට් එකක් එකතු කරන වැඩපිීලවෙලක් හැදුවද. මේ ආන්ඩුව නොහැකියවේ ආන්ඩුවක්. මිනිස්සුන්ට දෙන්න තියෙන දසවද දුන්න ආණ්ඩුව සිංහල අවුරුද්ද කලුවරේ සමරන්න සලස්වුවා. මේ ආන්ඩුව හවස 7 – 8 අතර කාලයේ මිනිස්සුන්ව කලුවරේ තියන්න කැමැතියි. ඒ වෙලාවටයි මාධ්‍ය ආයතන පණිවිඩ දෙන්නේ. අපේ කාලයේ ප්‍රවෘත්ති බලන කොට සංවර්ධන අද්‍යාපන පුවත් අහන්න ලැබුනට දැන් අහන්න ලැබෙන්නේ පාතාල ක්‍රියා, මිනීමැරුම්, ආන්ඩුවේ වංචා දූෂණ වගේ දේවල්. ඒ වෙලාවේ ලයිට් කැපුවම අල්ලන මත්ද්‍රව්‍ය ප්‍රමාණය, මරණ මිනිස්සු ගාන, මැති ඇමැතිවරු ගහපු ගැහිලි ගැන ජනතාවට දැ ගන්න ලැබෙන්නේ නැහැනේ. ඒ පැත්තෙන් ලයිට් කැපිම ආන්ඩුවට සැනසීමක්.  මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ ජනාධිපතිවරයාගේ සමයේත් නියග තිබුණා. මේ සියල්ල අතරේ කළමණාකාරීත්වයකින් රට ඉදිරියට ගියා. මිනිස්සුන්ව කලුවරේ තිබ්බේ නැහැ.

හම්බන්තොට අපනයන සැලසුම් කළාපයක් රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ අගමැතිවරයා ගිහින් විවෘත කළා. තෙල් පිරිපහදුවක් හා සිමෙන්ති කර්මාන්ත ශාලාවක්. එදා වරාය විෂය භාර ඇමැති මම. මෙවැනි කර්මාන්ත ශාලා 11ක් අරභන්න විදේශීය ආයෝජකයෝ 11ක් ඩොලර් බිලියන 1.1 ක විදේශ ආයෝජන අරන් ආවා. එදා සියලු ගිවිසුම් ගහලා තිබුණා. රජයක් විදියට ප්‍රතිපත්තියක් ක්‍රියාත්මක කළා නම් ඒ ආයෝජකයෝ කර්මාන්ත ශාලා 11ක් මේ රටේ පිහිටුවලා. ඒවා එහෙම පිටින්ම අයින්කරලා මැතිවරණය ළග නිසා දැන් අපනයන සැකසුම් කළාපය හදිසියේ හදන්න යනවා. ඔමානයේ තෙල් විෂය භාර ඇ මැතිවරයා ආවා. අපි මේ සමාගම කවුද, මේ සමාගම හා සිංගප්පූරුව අතර තියෙන සම්බන්ධය මොකක්ද, කියන දේවල් දැන ගන්න කැමැතියි. ඔමානයේ ඇමැතිවරයාවත් හයර් කළාද කියලා සැකයි. කලුතර මිල්ලනිය, මාවතගම, කුලියාපිටිය වගේ ස්ථානවල තානාපතිවරු ගෙන්වලා නොයෙකුත් කර්මාන්ත ශාලා ඉදිකිරීමේ මුල්ගල් තිබ්බා. අවුරුදු 4ක් ගත වෙලා මොනවද මේ කර්මාන්ත ශාලාවල ඉදිකලේ. දැන් අක්කර 12000ක් වෙන්කරලා එහි ගොල්ප් ක්‍රිඩාපීටි 5ක් හදනවාලු. අපේ රටේ මිනිස්සුන්ට අඩුවෙලා තිබුනේ ගොල්ප් ගහන එක විතරයි. ඒ තරමට අපේ මිනිස්සු ඉන්නේ සුඛිත මුදුත වෙලා. දැන් රුහුණ ආර්ථිකයේ කේන්ද්‍රස්ථානය කරනවාලු. මේ ආයෝජන කළාපය එතුමාගේ 70 වැනි උපන් දිනය වෙනුවෙන් දායාද කරනවාලු. එතුමා 2017.01.03 කුලියාපිටියේ වොක්ස්වැගන් මව් ආයතනයවත් නොදැන වොක්ස්වැගන් වාහන නිෂ්පාදනය කරන කර්මාන්ත ශාලාවක් අපේ රටටදායාද කළා. මේ තියෙන්නේ දැන් කුලියාපිටියේ හදන කාර් ( සෙල්ලම් කාරයක් පෙන්වයි) පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රීවරුන්ට මේක එවලා තිබුණා. මේ වැනි සිහින මාලිගාවලට අපිව එක්ක යනවා. මාධ්‍යවේදීන්ට අපිට වඩා පේන්වා. 2015 ජනවාරි 08 ඉදන් මේ වන තෙක් අක්කර 12000,25000,15000 කියමින් ගස් කැපුවානේ.මේ වන තෙක් බුල්ටෝ ටොපි , තලාබෝල පැකට් කරන තැනක් හැදුවා නම් කියන්න. ඔමානයේ ඇමැතිවරයා තියාගෙන ආන්ඩුවේ අය කියපු දේවල් බැලුවම ලංකාව දැන් සුරපුරයක්. මිනිස්සු බොහොම සතුටින්. උදේ අපි පාර්ලිමේන්තු එන කොට වයලින් ගගහා මිනිස්සු සතුටින් පාරවල් වල ඉදියි කියලා හිතුවේ. 2019 සතුටින් ඉන්න මිනිස්සුන්ගේ ලයිස්තුවේ ශ්‍රි ලංකාව ඉන්නේ 130 වෙනි තැන. 2018 ඉදලා තියෙන්නේ 116. පකිස්ථානය 67 වෙනි තැන. භූතානය 95 වෙනි තැන. නේපාලය 100 වෙනි තැන. බංගලිදේශය 125 වෙනි තැන. ලංකාවේ සතුටෙන් නොවන මිනිස්සු බවට පරිවර්තනය විමකුයි තියෙන්නේ. මේ කියනවිදියට රට පරිවර්ථනයක් වුනා නම් මිනිස්සු සතුටෙන් ඉන්නවා. මේ හතරගාතෙන් වැටුනු ආන්ඩුවට තව දුරටත් ඉදිරියට යන්න බැහැ. 5 වැනිදාට දොල පිදේනි දීලායි. දෙමල සන්ධානයට අපේ රණ විරුවෝ පාවා දෙන ගමන් විල්පත්තුව කපන්නත් ඉඩ දිලා අයවැයට අත ඔසවා ගන්නවා.

ශ්‍රී ලංකා පොදුජන පෙරමුණේ සභාපති මහාචාර්ය ජී. එල්. පීරිස් මහතා

විදේශ ඇමැතිවරයාගේ ප්‍රධානත්වයෙන් ජිනිවා නගරයේ ශ්‍රි ලංකා රජය නියෝජනයකරන පිරිස මානය හිමිකම් මහ කොමසාරිස්වරිය නිල වශයෙන් හමුවුන බව නිවේදනය කලා. මහ කොමාසරිස්වරිය රජයේ වැඩපිළිවෙල ප්‍රසංශා කළ බවත් විදේශ කටයුතු අමාතයංශයේ නිවේදනයේ සදහන් වෙනවා. එතුමියගේ වාර්තාවෙන් නම් කියන්නේ  ඒ අය කියන විදියට යුද්ධය කාලයේ සිදුවුනු අපරාධ සම්බන්ධයෙන් අපක්ෂපාතී විමර්ශන පවත්වලා අදාල පුද්ගලයින්ට දඩුවම් පැනවිමට ශ්‍රී ලංකා රජයට නොහැකි බවයි. මහ කොමසාරිස්වරියගේ වාර්තාවෙන් අපක්ෂපාති වමර්ශන ශ්‍රි ලංකා රජයෙන්බලාපොරාත්තු වෙන්න බැරි බව කියනවා. අද දැඩි අවශ්‍යතාවයක් තියෙන්නේ මේ ක්‍රියාදාමයන්ට විදේශිය විනිසුරන් සම්බන්ධ කර ගැනීම බවයි ඇය සදහන් කරන්නේ. එසේ නොකලොත් සත්‍ය අනාවරණය නොවන බව කියමින් එසේ නොකලොත් අනාගතයේ බරපතල දුරිව්පාකවලට ශ්‍රී ලංකාවට මුහුණ දෙන්න සිදුවෙන බවයි.

මේකට ප්‍රතිචාරය විදියට තිලක් මාරපන විදේශ ඇමැතිවරයා කියන්නේ විදේශීය විනිසුරන්පත් කරන්න ඉඩක් ලංකාවේ ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ නැති බවයි. එසේ කරනවා නම් ආන්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාව සංශෝධනය කරන්න පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ තුනෙන් දෙකේ බහුතරය හා ජනමත විචාරණයක් පැවැත්විය යුතු බවයි කියන්නේ. මෙතනදි ප්‍රශ්නයක් නැගෙනවා. මේක ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ යෝජනාවක්. ඒ යෝජනාවේ 6 වැනි ජේදයෙන් කියන්නේ විදේශීය විනිසුරන් යොදා ගන්න එකග වන බවයි. මෙය ආන්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවට පටහැනියි නම් එදා ආන්ඩු ක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවට එරෙහි දෙයක් කරන්නයි මේ රජය පොරොන්දු වෙලා තියෙන්නේ. එහි ප්‍රතිඵලයක් වශයෙනුයි මේ අවුල් ජාලාව ඇති වෙන්නේ . දමිල සන්ධානය නියෝජනය කරමින් වෙනම ධූත පිරිසක් යනවා රටට විරුද්ධව අදහස් දක්වන්න. එහි වියදම දැරැවේ ශ්‍රී ලංකා රජයයි. 2015 එකග වු විදියට සියයට සියයක් විදේශිය විනිසුරන්ගේ අධිකරණයක් පත් කළන්න අවශ්‍යයි. රට දෙකට නෙවෙයි හතරට කැඩුනත් කමක් නැති බවයි ඒ අය කියන්නේ. මේ දෙවෙනි යෝජනාව ගේන්නේ එංගලන්තය කැනඩිව ජර්මනිය මැසඩෝනියාව ඇතුළු බටහිර රටවල් පහක්. ඒකට අත්සන් කරපු එකම ආසියානු රට ශ්‍රී ලංකාවයි. මේ සම්බන්ධයෙන් ගත්ත ක්‍රියාමාර්ගය වැරදියි රටේනීතියට පටහැනියි. මේ  යෝජනාවට අත්සන්කරන්න කියලා ජිනීවා නගරයේ තානාපතිවරයාට නියෝග කලේ විදේශ ඇමැතිවරයා නෙවෙයි. අමාත්‍යංශයට සම්බන්ධයක් නැති සංහිදියා ඒකකය කියන ආයතනයේ මනෝ තිත්තවැල්ල. විදේශ කටයුතු අමාත්‍යංශය හෝ ජනාධිපතිකාර්යාලය මේ සම්බන්ධයෙන් කිසිම දෙයක් දන්නේ නැහැ. මේක දේශද්‍රෝහි ක්‍රියාවක්.

එක්සත් ජාතින්ගේ රටවල සියලුම තානාපති කාර්යාල ඇමරිකාවේ පිහිටලා තියෙනවා. ඒ මධ්‍යයේ ශ්‍රී ලංකාවට විරුද්ධව ඇමරිකාව ගෙනාපු යෝජනාව සම්මත කර ගන්න සියලු උත්සාහයන් ගත්තත් මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ සමයේ අපි ගිහින් කරුණු ඉදිරිපත් කළාට පස්සේ අවසානයේ යෝජනාවට පක්ෂව ලැබුනේ ඡන්ද 23යි. රටවල් 12ක් විරුද්ධව ඡන්දය දුන්නා. තව රටවල් 12ක් ඡන්දය නොදී හිටියා. ඇමරිකාව කෙතරම් බලවත් වුනත් මානව හිමිකම් කවුන්සිලයේ සාමාජිකත්වයෙන් අඩක් යෝජනාවට එකග කර ගන්න බැරි වුනා. එදා ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ ස්ථාවරය සාධාරණයි කියන තැන චිනය රුසියාව සවුදි අරාබිය, එක්සත් එමිරේට්, පකිස්ථානය වගේ රටවල් හිටියා. ඉන්දුනිසියාව ජපානය ඔවුන්ගේ නියෝජිතයින් හරහා ලංකාවේ අභ්‍යන්තර ප්‍රශෟනවලට අත පෙවීම සුදුසු නැති බව කිව්වා. ඒ අවස්ථාවේ සංශෝධනයක් ඉදිරිපත්කළා නම් ඒ සංශෝධනය ජය ගැනීමට අවස්ථාව තිබුණා වුනත් ආන්ඩුව පත් කරන්න උදව් කරපු දෙස් විදෙස් බලවේග තෘප්තියට පත්කරන්න චේතනාන්විතව රජයේ සම අනුග්‍රහයෙන් යෝජනාව ගෙනාවා.

43 වැනි සැසිවාරයේදි රට ගැන විමර්ශන පවත්වලා වාර්තාවක් ඉදිරිපත් කරන්න කිව්වා. ඒ වාර්තාව ගැන සම්පුර්ණ විමර්ශන පවත්වලා මානව හිමිකම් කවුන්සිලයේ 46 වැනි සැසිවාරය පැවැත්වීමට ශ්‍රී ලංකා රජය එකගත්වය ප්‍රකාශ කළා. රටේ අභ්‍යන්තර කටයුතු ගැන තිරණ ගන්න මොනවගේ ආයතනයකට අපි අවසර දීලා තියෙන්නේ. මානව හිමිකම් කොමසාරිස්වරිය හමුදාවේ මාණ්ඩලික ප්‍රධානියා විදියට වැරදි කෙනෙක් පත් කළා කියනවා. නමුත් පළාත් සභා මැතිවරණ්‍ය වසර එකහමාරකට වඩා කල් දැමිම ගැන වචනයක්වත් කියන්නේ නැහැ. මතු කුඩු ජාවාරම්කරුවන්ට මරණීය දණ්ඩනය පැනවීම ගැන විරෝධය පත්කරනවා. ඒ වුනාට ඇමරිකාවේ මරණිය දණ්ඩනය ක්‍රියාත්මක වෙනවා. මේක තමයි දෙබිඩි පිළිවෙත. නවසිලන්තයේ ත්‍රස්තවාදී ක්‍රියාවට එරෙහිව අදහස් දැක්වුවත් කාත්තන්කුඩියේ ඒවැනි සිද්ධියවක් වුනාම ඒක විමුක්ති අරගලයේ කොටසක්. ඒ නිසා ඇමරිකාව ද්විත්ව පිළීවෙතක් අනුගමනය කරන නිසා අපි ඉල්ලා අස්වෙනවා කියලා පරුෂ වචන කියමින් ඒ ආයතනයෙන් ඉවත්වුනේ. ඒකෙන් ප්‍රයෝජන ගන්න අවස්ථාව ආවත් අපේ රට කිසිම ප්‍රයෝජනයක් ගත්තේ නැහැ. වසර දෙකකට වොෂින්ටන්වල අපේ තානාපතිවරයෙක් නැහැ. මේ රටේ විදේශ ප්‍රතිපත්තිය මේ වෙද්දි අවුල් වෙලා තියෙන්නේ.

විදුලිය ප්‍රශ්නය ඇති වෙලා තියෙන්නේ රජයේ නොහැකියාව නිසයි. මේ වෙනකල් ආන්ඩුවට එක ප්‍රධාන ව්‍යාපෘතියක්වත් අනුමත කරගන්න බැහැ. මෙහෙම වුනාම පුද්ගලික අංශයෙන් මිලදිගැනිම් කරන්න වෙනවා. මේවා හිතාමතාම කරන්නේ.වැස්ස තියෙනවා නම් විදුලිය තියෙනවා. වැස්ස නැත්නම් විදුලිය නැහැ. මෙහෙම වෙන්න ආන්ඩුවක් මොකටද.

පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රී ඩලස් අලහප්පරෙුම මහතා

මෙවර අයවැය තරම් පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රීවරුන්ගේ අඩුම සහභාගීත්වයක් ඇති අයවැයක්, මේ තරම් ඇල්මැරුණු විවාදයක්, මගේ පාර්ලිමේන්තු ජිවිතයේදී දැකලා නැහැ. අයවැයේ තියෙන දේශපාලන ගුණය හා සමාජ ගුණය මේ වසර දෙක ඇතුළත මුලුමනින්ම නැති කරන්න මේ ආන්ඩුව පියවර ගෙන තිබෙනවා. අයවැයට තිබුණු සම්භාවණිය වටිනාකම , ගරුත්වය මුලිනුපුටා දමන්න පියවර ගෙන තිබෙනවා. මේ අයවැය ප්‍රකාශයට පත්කරලා මුදල් ඇමැතිවරයා පාර්ලිමේන්තුවෙන් එළියට එන ගමන් කියනවා අද රෑ ඉදලා ඉන්ධන මිල වැඩිවෙනවා කියලා. තුනිවෙනි දවස වෙද්දි පිටිකිරි මිල ඉහළ දමනවා. ඊට පැය 72ට පෙර ඉදිරිපත් කරන අයවැයේ මේ  සම්බන්ධයෙන් සදහනක් නැහැ. මගේ පාර්ලිමේන්තු ජිවිතයේ පළවෙනි වතාවට වැරදිපූර්වාදර්ශයන් දෙකක් අපි දැක්කා. අයවැය විවාදය යන අතරතුර අමාත්‍යංශ දෙකක විෂයන් වෙනස්කළා. පාර්ලිමේන්තු ඉතිහාසයේ ඒ විදියට විවාදය යන අතරේ ඇමැතිධුර වෙනස් වෙනවා අපි දැකලා නැහැ. උදාහරණයක් විදියට වෘත්තීය පුහුණු හා නිපුණතා සංවර්ධන අමාත්‍යංශය විවාදය කරලා පැය 48ක් යද්දි අමාත්‍යංශය වෙනස් වෙනවා. මේකෙන් පේන්නේ විද්‍යාත්මක පදනම් ගැන කතාකරන මේ ආන්ඩුව මොන තරම් අවිද්‍යාත්මකද, අතාර්තිකද කියන කාරණයයි. ආන්ඩුවට පිළීවෙලක් නැහැ. මේ රටේ ජනතාවට කියනවා අයවැය ඇතුලේ තියෙන්නේ සංඛ්‍යා විතරයි. පහුගිය අවුරුදුවල ඉදිරිපත් කරපු යෝජනා ඒ විදියටම ඇතුළත් කරලා තියෙනවා. ආකර්ශනියයි කියන යෝජනා පවා මීට පෙර ඉදිරිපත් කරපුවා. අයවැයේ තිබුණු සම්භාවණීය, ගරුත්වය මුලුමනින්ම නැති කිරිම ගැන අපි ආන්ඩුවට විරෝධය දක්වනවා.

අයවැය පරාජය පත්කරනවාද කියන දේ ජනතාව අපෙන් අහනවා. අයවැය පරාජය කරන්න බැහැ. ඇයි බැරි. පළිවෙනි කාරණාය විපක්ෂය විදියට පෙනි ඉන්න දෙමළ ජාතික සන්ධානයට මෙවරත් ජිනීවා කප්පම දුන්නා. ඒ නිසා දෙමළ ජාතික සන්ධානයේ මන්ත්‍රීවරුන් 15 දෙනා  අයවැය වෙනුවෙන් පෙනි සිටිනවා.ඊට අමතරව ශ්‍රීලනීපයේ මන්ත්‍රීවරු කිහිපදෙනෙක් එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයේ මෙහෙකරෙ සේවයට ඇතුල් වෙලාතියෙනවා. මේ දෙපාර්ශවය නිසාවෙන් අයවැය සංඛ්‍යාත්මකව පරාජය කරන්න බැහැ. දෙමළ ජාතික සන්ධිනයේ දේශපාලන වංකභාවය හා ශ්‍රීලනිපයේ ඇතැමුන් දේශපාන මෙහෙකාර සේවය ඇතුලත්වීමයි අයවැය පරාජය කරන්න බැරි ප්‍රධාන හේතු.

ජාතික ආන්ඩුව හා විධායක ජනාධිපතිධූරය ඉවත් කිරීම දැන් නැවතත් කරළියට ඇවිත් . මේ කාරණා කරළියට එන්නේ මොන වෙලාවටද. ඔබ මාධ්‍යයෙන් වාර්තා කළා රාජපක්ෂ පවුලේ සාමාජිකයින් එකතු වෙලා නුදුරු ජනාධීපතිවරණය සම්බන්ධයෙන් ඒකමතික තීන්දුවකට ආපු බව. ඒ තින්දුව රාජපක්ෂ පවුලෙන් හෝ ඒකාබද්ධ විපක්ෂය විදියට ප්‍රකාශ කලේ නැහැ. නමුත් මාධ්‍ය වාර්තා කළා. මේ වාර්තා කිරීමෙන් පස්සේ හැංගි හැංගි වෙස් බැදපු ජාතික ආන්ඩු කෝළමත්, විධායක ජනාධීපති කෝළමත් කරලියට ආවා. ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ මහතා පවුලේ නියෝජිතයා විදියට ඉදිරිපත්කරන්න තින්දු කළා කියලයි වාර්තා කලේ. ඊට පස්සේ මේ කෝලම් දෙක කරලියට ආවා. 1982 ජනාධිපතිවරණ මෙහෙයුම මතක ඇති. එදා ජේ. ආර්. ජයවර්ධන මහතාගේ ජයග්‍රහණයේ උපක්‍රමය බණ්ඩාරනායක පවුල දෙකඩ කිරීමයි. මැතිණියගේ ප්‍රජා අයිතිය අහෝසි කරලා එතුමාය පිටියෙන් එළියේ තියලා බණ්ඩාරනායක පවුල කැඩුවා. එහෙමයි ජේ. ආර්.ජයවර්ධන මහතා අපේ ජනාධීපති අපේක්ෂක කොබ්බෑකඩුව මහතා පරාජය කරලා දැම්මේ. ජේ. ආර්. ජයවර්ධන මහතාගේ බෑනැ වෙන රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ මහතාත් හිනයක හිටියා. බණ්ඩාරනායක පවුල කැඩුවා වගේ රාජපක්ෂ පවුලත් කඩන්න පුලුවන් කියලා. බැසිල් ගෝඨා අතර අර්බුදයක්. ජනාධිපති අපේක්ෂකත්වය නිසා රාජපක්ෂ පවුල බෙදිලා වැනි පුවත්වලින් පත්තර පිටු පිරුණා. නමුත් වගකීමෙන් අපි කියනවා. බණ්ඩාරනායක පවුල බෙදුවා වගේ රාජපක්ෂ පවුල බෙදන්නත් බැහැ. කඩන්නත් බැහැ. බැසිල් රාජපක්ෂ මහතා ඉතා ජව සම්පන්නව මැතිවරණ යාන්ත්‍රණය නිර්මාණය කරමින් සිටිනවා. මේ රටේ ලාබාලම පක්ෂය ජයගත්තේ ඒ හැකියාව හා නිර්මාණශීලි භාවය නිසා. මේ සියල්ල නිසා තැතිගත්තු අපේ දේශපාලන විරුද්ධවාදින් මේ කෝළම් දෙක කරළයටගේනවා.

ජාතික ආන්ඩුව ගැන ජනාධීපතිතුමා යමක් ප්‍රකාශ කළා. ශ්‍රිලනිප ඇතැමුන් ඒ ගැන අදහස්දැක්වුවා. පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ ස්ථාවරභාවය ඇති කරගන්නයි ජාතික ආන්ඩුව හදන්නේ කියලා කියනවා. පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ ස්ථාවරභාවය නැති වෙලාතියෙන්නේ ඇයි. පාර්ලිමේන්තුව අස්ථාවර වෙන්නේ 1078දි ජනාධිපතිවරණ ක්‍රමයත් එක්ක ගෙනාපු සමානුපාතික මැතිවරණ ක්‍රමය නිසයි. මේ කුමය යටතේ මැතිවරණ 7ක් මේ වෙද්දි තියලා තියෙනවා. 1988,1994,2000,2001, 2004, 2010,2015. මැතිවරණ දෙකකින් විශේෂ හේතු නිසා බහුතර ආන්ඩු පිහිටුවන්න හැකි වුනත් අනෙක් සියලු අවස්ථාවල බිහිවුනේ සුලුතර ආන්ඩු. 1994දි 105යි ආන්ඩුවට තිබුනේ. 2000දි 107යි. 2001දි 109යි. 2004 එතෙක් මෙතෙක් ඉතිහිසයේ හැදුනු පුලුල්ම පෙරමුණ ජවිපේ හා පොදුජන පෙරමුණ අතර ඇතිවුනා. ඒත් පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ හිටියේ 105යි. 2015 දැන් පාර්ලිමේන්තුව 105යි. 1988 දි ප්‍රෙමදාස රණසිංහ ජනාධිපතිවරයාගෙත් 2010 මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතාගේත් ප්‍රධානත්වයෙන් බහුතර ආන්ඩු පිහිටුවිම අහඹු සිදුවිම්. 1988 මහා භීෂණයක් අතරේ ඡන්දය ප්‍රකාශ කලේ සියයට 46යි. එජාප පාක්ෂිකයෝ හමුදා රැකවරණය මැද ඡන්ද පොලට ගෙන ගියා. 1988 දි සියයට 46ක් පමණක් ඡන්දය පාවිච්චි කරපු ඒ මැතිවරනය විකෘතියික්. මහා යුද ජයග්‍රහණයේ ආශ්වාදයෙන් ඡන්ද පොලට ගිය 2010  විශේෂ අවස්ථාවක්. මේක තමයි පාර්ලිමේන්තුව අස්ථාවර වෙන්න හේතුව.

විධායක ජනාධිපතිධූර ගැටය, සමානුපාතක මැතිවරණ ක්‍රමය ගැටය, පළාත් සභා ගැටය කියන ගැට තුනක් ජේ.ආර් මහත්තයා ගහලා තියෙද්දි අපිට කතා කරනවා විධෘයක ජනාධිපති ක්‍රමය කියන ගැටය විතරක් කපන්න. අපි දේශපාලන ගැට කපන්නත් නෙවෙයි. ශ්‍රී ලංකා පොදුජන පෙරමුනේ දේශපාලන ගැට කපන්නන් නැති බව ඉතාම වගකීමෙන් කියනවා. ජාතික ආන්ඩු යෝජනාව සමාජවිද්‍යාත්මකව බැලුවම අපචාරයක්. ආර්ථික විද්‍යාත්මකව බැලුවොත් බදු මුදල් මංකොල්ලයක්. අපරාධ විද්‍යාවට අනුව දූෂණයක්. දේශපාලන විද්‍යාවට අනුව ජනතාවගේ පරමාධිපත්‍ය කෙලසිමක්. වෛද්‍ය විද්‍යාවට අදාලව අජීර්ණයක්. ශ්‍රී ලංකා පොදුජන පෙරමුණ හෝ මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතා ප්‍රධාන කරගත්ත බලවේගය ජනාධිපති අපේක්ෂකයා කියන කාරණය ගැන නිල වශයෙන් තීන්දුවකට ඇවිත් නැහැ. ඒවුනාට අපි නොහිතන අය වුනත් මේ පෙරහැරේ විධායක ජනාධීපති කෝලමේ පිටුපස්සේ ඉදලා තිරය පළාගෙන එලියට එන්නත් පුලුවන්. ඒ ගැන චකිතයකට, පුදුමයකට පත් වෙන්න එපා. මේ රටේ බහුතර මැතිවරණ ක්‍රම යෝනා වෙලා තියෙන්නේ, ආන්ඩු ක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථා සංශෝධන යෝජනා වෙලා තියෙන්නේ මැතිවරණ පරාජයෙන් බේරෙන්න හෝ පටු දේශපාලන අරමුණු වෙනුවෙන්. ඒකයි යථාර්ථය. සමානුපාතික මැතිවරණ ක්‍රමය ගෙනත් ජේ. ආර්. ජයවර්ධන ජනාධිපතිතුමා එජාපයේ කෘත්‍යාධිකාරි මණ්ඩලය අමතමින් සදහන් කලේ එජාපයට සදාකාලිකවම බලයේ ඉන්න මම මැතිවරණ ක්‍රමයක් හැදුවා කියලයි. ඒ මැතිවරණ ක්‍රමය ඇත්ලේ මහින්ද මහත්තයා තුනෙන් දෙකේ බලයක් තියෙන ආන්ඩුවක් හැදීම වෙනම කාරණයක්. ඒක රටේ පහළ වුනු වෙන කිසිම නායකයෙක්ට කරන්න බැරි වුනා. ඒනිසා පුදුම වෙන්න එපා මැතිවරණ පරාජයෙන් බේරෙන්න මෙවැනි ප්‍රතිසංස්කරණ ගැන කතා කලොත්.

අරුණ පත්තරේ සන්වේදී ලිපියක් තියෙනවා. යුද ජයග්‍රහණයට නායකත්වය දුන්න ජෙනරල්වරු පස්දෙනා ගැන. ප්‍රධාන සේනාංක පහට අණදීපු මොවුන්ගේ දරුවන් බලන්න විදේශ ගතවෙන්න විසා එකවත් දෙන්නේ නැතිලු. යුද්ධයට එරෙහි වුවෝ වීරයෝ කරලා යුද්ධයට නායකත්වය දිලා ජිවත් වෙන්න පරිසරය හදපු හමුදා නායකයින්ට  අද අත් වෙලා තියෙන ඉරණම මේකයි. පුලුවන් තරම් මේ පණිවිඩය රටට ගෙනියන්න. සංවේදී මිනිසුන්ගේ පපුව කතා කරයි.

මේ ආන්ඩුව දුර්වල කලමණාකරණ සහිත ආන්ඩුවක් බව විදුලි කප්පාදුව මගින් මේ ආන්ඩුව නැවත ඔප්පු කරලා තියෙන්නේ. විදුලි අර්බුදයට නිශ්චිත විසදුමක් දුන්න අය අතර ප්‍රධානියා මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතායි. ඉතිහාසයේ අපේ නායකයෝ විදුලි අර්බුදයට දිපු විසදුම් මොනවාද. එක නායකයෙක් තිරණය කළා පුද්ගලික අංශයෙන් විදුලිය ගන්න. වරායට නැව් ගෙනත් නැවෙන් විදුලිය මිලදි ගන්න. විදුලිය කපන්නත් යෝජනාවක් ආවා. අන්තිමට කරු ජයසූරිය මහතාගේ කාලයේ පැය 8ක් විදුලිය කැපුවා. එක එක බලවේගවලට බයවෙලා විදුලි යෝජනා ක්‍රම අත් හැරියා. නොරොච්චෝලේ යෝජනා ක්‍රමය අත හැරියා. ඉහළ කොත්මලේ යෝජනා කුමයට මුල් ගල තියෙන දවසට කලින් දවසේ විරෝධතා නිසා ඒක වෙනස් කළා. මේ සියලුවිරුද්ධකම් මැද්දේ මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහත්තයා තින්දුවක් ගත්තා. විදුලි බල ඉංජිනේරැවෝ කිව්වේ අවම වශයෙන් දවසකට මෙගා වොට් 1200ක් අවශ්‍යයි කියලා. මහින්ද මහත්තයා රටේ අනාගතය වෙනුවෙන්ඇහුම්කන් දුන්නේ ඉංජිනේරුවන්ට. ඒ සැලසුමේ ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන්න බැරිවුන දේවල් තව තියෙනවා. තව අපූරු සැලසුමක් චන්ද්‍රිකා බණ්ඩාරනායක මැතිණියගේ කාලයේ තිබුණා. ලෝකේ කිසිම රටක් විදුලි අර්බුදයට නොදුන්න විසදුමක් දෙමින් ඔරලෝසුවේ කටු කැරකුවා. මේවා තමයි අපේ දේශපාලනඥයින්ගේ දුප්පත් දර්ශන. සියල්ල මැද මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතා අලුතින් බලාගාර තුනක් රටට එකතු කළා. එක බලාගාරයක් රටට නොදුන්න මේ ආන්ඩුව අද කලුවරේ ඇවිදිනවා. එක කාලයක කරුවල ජයසූරිය මහත්තයා හිටියා. දැන් කරුවල කරුණානයක මහත්තයා ඉන්නවා කියලා කාටුන් ශීල්පියෙකුත් කියලා තිබුණා. රවි කරුණානායක මහතාට පුද්ගලිකව ඇගිල්ල දිගු කරන්නේ නැහැ. ඔහු ඇමැතිධූරයට පත්වෙලා මාස තුනයි. ඔහුව නිදොස් කොට නිදහස් කරන්නෙත් නැහැ. මේ ආන්ඩුව මෙයට වගකිව යුතුයි. විදුලි බල මණ්ඩලයේ මාධ්‍ය ප්‍රකාශක සුලක්ෂණ ජයවර්ධන හිටිගමන් තනතුරෙන් ඉවත් වුනා.ඔහු ඉවත් වුනේ ඇයි. අපට ලැබුණු තොරතුරු අනුව වැරදි තොරතුරු සමාජයට දෙන්න කියලා දේශපාලනඥයින්ගෙන්කෙරෙන බලපෑම් නිසයි අස්වුනේ  

මාධ්‍ය –  දවල් කාලයේ අවශ්‍යතාව මෙගාවොට් 2000ට අධිකයි. දැන් තියෙන්නේ 1300යි. අපේ ජගය ඉතිරි කරගෙන සූර්ය බලය පාවිච්චි කරන්න පුලුවන්නේ.

ඩලස් අලහප්පෙරුම – ජලවිදුලිය මගින් රටේ විදුලිය ප්‍රශ්නයවිසදන්න බලාගෙන සිටිනවා නම් එය අනතුරක්. ලොව එයින් මිදෙමින් තිබෙනවා. සෝලා පාම්ස් දැන් තියෙන්නේ. අපිට වේගයෙන් වෙනස් වෙන්න වෙනවා.

මාධ්‍ය – ප්‍රාදේශිය ෂබා 21ක බලය ගන්න කතාවක් යනවා

ඩලස් අලහප්පෙරුම – ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස් පක්සය හා පොදුජන පෙරමුණ අතර පැවැති සාකච්ඡාවලදි ජි. එල් පිරිස් මහතා ඉදිරිපත් කරපු යෝජනාවක් ඒක. දැනට පළාත් පාලන ආයතන 21ක් එජාපය හා ශ්‍රීලනිපය හවුලේ බලය අත්පත්කරගත්ත දේවල්. එයින් 15 සභාපති එජාප. පොදුජන පෙරමුණ පැත්තෙත් එවැනි සභා තියෙනවා. ඒක බිම් මට්ටමේ සමගිය ඇති කරගන්නවා නම් හොද යෝජනාවක්. අයවැයට ජන්දය පාවිච්ඡි නොකිරීමේ සිද්ධියෙන් අපේ පාක්ෂිකයෝ විස්සෝප වෙලා ඉන්නේ. කළකිරිමක් කෝපයක් ඇතිවෙලා. ශ්‍රී ලංකා පොදුජන පෙරමුණට මන්ත්‍රීවරු 15යි. එජාපයට 10යි. ශ්‍රීලනීපයට මන්ත්‍රීවරු 2ක් ඉන්න ආයතනයක් තියෙනවා. පොදු ජන පෙරමුණට බලය ලැබීම වලක්වන්න උපක්‍රමශීලිව සභාපතිකම ශ්‍රීලනීපයෙන් තේරුණු දෙන්නාගෙන් කෙනෙක්ට දීලා සභාව එජාපයට ගන්නවා. එවැනි තත්ත්වයන් රැසක් තියෙනවා. අපේ අවංකකම පෙන්වන්න හොද යෝජනාවක්. අපි යෝජනා කරන්නේ එජාප විරෝධී පුලුල් පෙරමුණක්. එජාප වීරෝධී බවයි මෙහි මුඛ්‍ය ලක්ෂණය වෙන්නේ. එජාප විරෝධී බව එළිපට පෙන්වන්න දකින්න මේක හොද අවස්ථාවක්

ජි. එල් පිරිස් – පාක්ෂිකයින් තුල විශ්වාසය ගොඩනංවා ගන්න මේක හොද අවස්ථාවක්.

මාධ්‍ය – ජවිපේ කියනවා මෙවර සියයට 50 සිමාව කිසිවෙකුට ගන්න බැරි බව කියනවා.

ඩලස් අලහප්පෙරුම – ජනාධීපතිවරණයට පෙර මේ විදියට ජනාධීපතිවරණය ගැන පුරෝකතන කරනවානේ. ජනාධීපතිවරණ 5දිම මේ වගේ පුර්ව නිගමන දීලා තියෙනවා.දැන් ඒ වගේ කතා ඇහෙන්න අරන් තියෙන්නේ. ඡන්ද ප්‍රතිඵල නිකුත් වුනාමයි බලන්න වෙන්නේ. තුන්වෙනි අපේක්ෂකයෝ සාර්ථකයි. ලක්ෂ තුනකට වැඩිය ගත්තේ නන්දන ගුණතිලක විතරයි. මැතිවරණ වෙද්දි පූර්ව නිගමන එන එක සාමාන්‍යයි.

මාධ්‍ය – වත්මන් ජනාධීපතිවරයාව බලනේම අපෙක්ෂකත්වයට ගෙනයන්න අත්සාහ කරනවා.

ඩලස් අලහප්පෙරුම – මම එහෙම වෙයි කියලා හිතන්නේ නැහැ. එතුමා විධෘයක ජනාධිපතිධූරය ගැන පැහැදිලි ප්‍රකාශයක් කරලා තියෙනවා. ඇතැමුන්ට එහෙම උත්සාහයක් ඇති. අවසානයේ එක මතයකට එන්න හැකි වෙයි කියලා විශ්වාස කරනවා.

තක්ෂක හේමචන්ද්‍ර ගරු විද්‍යා, තාක්ෂණ  හා පර්යේෂණ අමාත්‍යතුමාගේ මාධ්‍ය ලේකම්

විද්‍යා තාක්ෂණ හා පර්යේෂණ අමාත්‍යාංශය යටතේ ක්‍රියාත්මක වන නවීන තාක්ෂණ පිළිබඳ ආතර් සී. ක්ලාක් මධ්‍යස්ථානය විසින් චීන රජයේ සහයෝගය ඇතිව පෘථිවි නිරීක්ෂණ චන්ද්‍රිකා දත්ත ලබාගැනීම සහ බෙදාහැරීම සඳහා වන ජාතික මධ්‍යස්ථානයක් ස්ථාපනය කිරීමට පියවර ගනිමින් තිබේ. ඒ සඳහා ආතර් සී. ක්ලාක් ආයතනය සහ චීනයේ දුරස්ථ සංවේදක සහ සංඛ්‍යාංක පෘථිවි ආයතනය අවබෝධතා ගිවිසුමකට එළඹ තිබේ. එම  අවබෝධතා ගිවිසුමට අනුව සිදුවන චන්ද්‍රිකා  මධ්‍යස්ථානයේ ඉදිකිරීමේ කටයුතුවල ප්‍රගතිය පිළිබඳව දැනුවත්කිරීමේ සාකච්ඡාවක් සඳහා චීන රජයේ නියෝජිතයන් පිරිසක් පසුගියදා විද්‍යා, තාක්ෂණ හා පර්යේෂණ අමාත්‍ය සුජීව සේනසිංහ මහතා මුණ ගැසිණි. එම හමුවේ දී මෙහි ඉදිකිරීම් කටයුතු කඩිනම් කිරීමට අවශ්‍ය පියවර පිළිබඳ සාකච්ඡා විය.

මෙම ජාතික මධ්‍යස්ථානය මගින් දිවයින තුළ ඇති ස්වාභාවික පරිසර පද්ධති හා පුරාවිද්‍යාත්මක සාධක ගැන මෙන්ම ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ වෙරළබඩ හා සාගරික පද්ධති පිළිබඳ වැදගත් වූ භූගෝලීය තොරතුරු පහසුවෙන් අනාවරණය කර ගත හැකිය.

අභ්‍යවකාශ තාක්ෂණ යෙදවුම් කෘෂිකර්මය, පුරාවිද්‍යාව, කාලගුණ විද්‍යාව, වාරිමාර්ග හා ජල සම්පත් කළමනාකරණය, ස්වාභාවික සම්පත් කළමනාකරණය, පරිසර කළමනාකරණය, සාගර නිරීක්ෂණය, නාගරික සංවර්ධනය, ආපදා කළමනාකරණය හා ප්‍රවාහනය ඇතුළු බොහෝ විශේෂයන් හි පැතිරෙමින් පවතී. එබැවින් මෙම චන්ද්‍රිකා මධ්‍යස්ථානය ඉදිකිරීම හරහා ලබාගත හැකි පෘථිවි නිරීක්ෂණ චන්ද්‍රකා දත්ත හා ඡායාරූප තුළින් හෙළිවන විවිධ අංශ වල තොරතුරු ඉදිරි ජාතික සංවර්ධන කාර්යයන් සඳහා ඉතා වැදගත් දායකත්වයක් සපයනු ඇත.

චීන රජය විසින් මෙම චන්ද්‍රිකා ඇන්ටනාව නිෂ්පාදනය කරනු පිණිස අරමුදල් ප්‍රදානය  කරන  අතර,  දැනට එය ක්‍රියාත්මක වෙමින් පවතී. වසර දෙකක කාලයකින් එහි කටයුතු අවසන් කිරීමට නියමිතය. ඒ අතරතුර කාලයේදි මේ සඳහා සුදුසු භූමියක් සපයාගැනීම සහ මධ්‍යස්ථානය සඳහා යටිතල පහසුකම් සපයාදීම ආතර් සී. ක්ලාක් ආයතනය විසින් සිදු කරනු ලැබේ. වත්මන් රජය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන තාක්ෂණ නගර ව්‍යාපෘතිය යටතේ දැනටමත් හෝමාගම පිටිපන ප්‍රදේශයේ බිම් කොටසක් මෙම කාර්යය වෙනුවෙන් මායිම් නියමකර තිබේ. මේ වර්ෂයේ ජුනි මාසය වන විට මෙම ඉඩම් අත්පත්කර ගැනීමේ කටයුතු ද අවසන් කිරීමට නියමිතය.

මෙම මධ්‍යස්ථානය ඉදිකිරීම සඳහා අවශ්‍ය වන ව්‍යුහ  සහ ආධාරක යටිතල පහසුකම් පිළිබඳ තාක්ෂණික දැනුම ආතර් සී. ක්ලාක් මධ්‍යස්ථානය වෙත ලබා දීමට චීන විද්‍යා ඇකඩමිය කටයුතු කරනු ලැබේ.

මෙම විෂය ක්ෂේත්‍රය පිළිබඳව පුළුල් දැනුමක් සහ පුහුණුවක්  ලබා දෙනු පිණිස ශ්‍රී ලංකාව තුළ විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයක් හෝ කාර්මික විද්‍යාලයක් චීන විද්‍යා ඇකඩමියේ සහයෝගය ඇතිව ආරම්භ කිරීම සඳහා අවශ්‍ය සහාය ලබාදෙන ලෙස අමාත්‍යවරයා විසින් නියෝජිත පිරිසෙන් විශේෂ ඉල්ලීමක් සිදු කරනු ලැබූ අතර, චීන පාර්ශ්වයෙන් මේ සඳහා සාධනීය ප්‍රතිචාරයක් ලබා දෙනු ලැබීය.

මෙම අවස්ථාවට චීන නියෝජිත පිරිස ලෙස මහාචාර්ය ලියු ජින්බෝ, ලියු නින්, ෂොයු ෂියැංග්, වෑන්ග්  ජෝජියැග්, හුවැන්ග් පෙන්ග්, ලි ෆැන්ග් යන මහත්වරුන් ද, විද්‍යා, තාක්ෂණ හා පර්යේෂණ අමාත්‍යාංශයේ ලේකම් චින්තක ලොකුහෙට්ටි, අධ්‍යක්ෂ හිමාලි අතාවුදගේ, නවීන තාක්ෂණය පිළිබඳ ආතර් සී. ක්ලාක් මධ්‍යස්ථානයේ සභාපති මහාචාර්ය උපුල් සොන්නාදර යන මහත්ම මහත්මීන් ඇතුළු පිරිසක් එක්ව සිටියහ.

තක්ෂක හේමචන්ද්‍ර

ගරු විද්‍යා, තාක්ෂණ  හා පර්යේෂණ අමාත්‍යතුමාගේ

මාධ්‍ය ලේකම්

ජනාධිපති නීතිඥ ජේ.සී. වැලිඅමුණ

An interview with Mr. J. C. Weliamuna published by the Asian Human Rights Commission

තරිඳු උඩුවරගෙදර

අධිකරණයේ නඩු ප‍්‍රමාද වෙන බව සමාජයේ ජනප‍්‍රිය මතයක් පවතිනවා. ඒත් ඒ ප‍්‍රමාදයට හේතු ග ැන බොහෝ අය සොයන්නේ නැහැ නේද?

බාහිරව බැලූවාම පෙනෙන්නේ උසාවියේ නඩු කල් යන එක විතරයි. සමහරු නීතිඥවරුන්ට බනිනවා. සමහරු විනිශ්චයකරුවන්ට බනිනවා. කොහොම ගත්තත් මේක ජාතික ප‍්‍රශ්නයක්. අධිකරණය විසින් නියමිත කාලයට යුක්තිය ඉෂ්ට කරන්නේ නැතිනම්, බොහෝවිට යුක්තිය ඉෂ්ට වෙන්නේම නැහැ. අවුරුදු දහයකට පස්සේ යුක්තිය ඉෂ්ට වෙන්න පුළුවන් වුණත් වින්දිතයාගේ පැත්තෙන් ඒක යුක්තිය ඉෂ්ට වීමක් විදියට දකින්න අමාරුයි.

‘බෙන්ච් ඇන්ඞ් බාර්‘ හෙවත් විනිසුරුවරුන් හා නීතිඥවරුන් කියන දෙපාර්ශ්වය මේ තත්වයට වගකියන්න ඕනෑ බව පොදු අදහසක් තියෙනවා.

විනිශ්චයකාරවරුන් හා නීතිඥවරුන් දෙපාර්ශ්වයත් වගකියන්න ඕනෑ බව ඇත්ත. එහෙත් මේක ඒ දෙපාර්ශ්වයේ ප‍්‍රශ්නයක් පමණක් නොවෙයි. සංකීර්ණ ප‍්‍රශ්න කිහිපයත්ම මේකට හේතුවෙනවා. අධිකරණ පද්ධතිය එක් ආයතනයක් මත නෙවෙයි රඳාපවතින්නේ. අධිකරණය රාජ්‍ය යාන්ත‍්‍රණයේ එක් අංගයක්. ඒක රාජ්‍ය යාන්ත‍්‍රණයේ අනෙකුත් අංග සමඟ අපි හිතන්නේත් නැති තරම් බද්ධවෙලා තියෙනවා. උදාහරණයක් විදියට නීතිපති දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව, රජයේ රස පරීක්ෂක, පොලිසිය ආදි නොයෙකුත් ආයතන සමඟ බැෙ`දනවා. අනෙක් පැත්තෙන් රාජ්‍ය මූල්‍යය මත ඒ ආයතනවල කාර්යක්ෂමතාව රඳාපවතිනවා. අධිකරණ කටයුතු ඉක්මනින් සිද්ධවෙන රටවල රාජ්‍ය මූල්‍යයෙන් සෑහෙන කොටසක් යුක්තිය ඉෂ්ට කිරීමේ ක‍්‍රියාදාමයට යොමුවෙනවා. මුදල් ගැන එක් උදාහරණයක් කීවොත්, ඒ මුදල් මේ ක්ෂේත‍්‍රය, තාක්ෂණය යොදා නවීකරණය කරන්න යොදවනවා. එහෙත් නවීකරණය කළ පමණින් කාර්යක්ෂම වෙන්නේ නැහැ. ඒ නවීන තාක්ෂණය පාවිච්චි කරන්නට පුහුණුවකුත් අවශ්‍ය වෙනවා. තව අතුරු ප‍්‍රශ්න රාශියක් තියෙනවා.

එක අතුරු ප‍්‍රශ්නයක් තමයි ලඝුලේඛකයන් පිළිබඳ ප‍්‍රශ්නය. අධිකරණයේ පරිපාලනය පැත්තෙන් තියෙන බරපතළම ප‍්‍රශ්නයක් ඒක. අද ලඝුලේඛකයෙක් වැඩ කරන්නේ පරිගණකයෙන්. අද වෙනත් රටවල නම් කොළ නැතිව පරිගණකයෙන්ම ටයිප් කරනවා. ඒක එක් උදාහරණයක්. ලඝුලේඛකයන් නැතිවෙන්න එක් ප‍්‍රධාන හේතුවක් තියෙනවා. ඔවුන්ගේ වැටුප බොහෝම අඩුයි. වෙන රටවල වගේ ලංකාවේ ලඝුලේඛකයන් කියන්නේ වෘත්තියක් නෙවෙයි. ලංකාවේ ලඝුලේඛකයන් බිහිකරන අධ්‍යාපන ආයතනයක්වත් නැහැ. මේ ක්ෂේත‍්‍රයේ වැඩ කරන්නේ තරුණයන්. පරිගණකයෙන් වැඩ කරන්නේ. ඉතින් මේ ක්ෂේත‍්‍රයට වැඩි වැටුපක් ගෙවන්න වෙනවා. ඒත් ඔවුන්ගේ වැටුප් වැඩි කරන්න උත්සාහ කළාම රාජ්‍ය තන්ත‍්‍රයේ ඉන්න පරිපාලන නිලධාරීන් ප‍්‍රශ්න ඇති කරනවා, අපට වඩා පඩි වැඩි කරන්න බැහැ කියලා. මම ටිකක් ඇතුළට ගිහින් කත ාකළේ එක් ක්ෂේත‍්‍රයක්. මේ වෙද්දී පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ ආංශික අධික්ෂණ කාරක සභාවලින් මේ ප‍්‍රශ්නය පිළිබඳව සලකා බලා තියෙනවා. දැනට විසඳුමක් නම් නැහැ.

අපරාධ නඩු ප‍්‍රමාදයට විශේෂ හේතු ත ියෙනවාද?

අපරාධ නඩුවක් මහේස්ත‍්‍රාත් අධිකරණයේ විමර්ශනයට ගිහින්, මහාධිකරණයට ගිහිල්ලා, ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණය දක්වා ගිහින් අවසාන වෙන්නට සාමාන්‍යයෙන් අවුරුදු 10 – 17 දක්වා යනවා. බොහොම කලාතුරකින් තමයි නඩුවක් ටික කාලයකින් අවසාන වෙන්නේ. අපරාධ නඩු ප‍්‍රමාද වෙන්නට තියෙන එක් ප‍්‍රධාන හේතුවක් තමයි විමර්ශන ප‍්‍රමාද වීම. ලංකාවේ විමර්ශන කටයුතු කරන සී.අයි.ඞී. වගේ ආයතනවල ඉතාම දක්ෂ නිලධාරීන් ඉන්නවා. ඒත් බොහෝ අය දන්නේ නැහැ, සී.අයි.ඞීයේ එක් නිලධාරියෙක් එකම වෙලාවක විමර්ශන 80ක් විතර කරන බව. ඒ අතරේ ඉතාම සංකීර්ණ විමර්ශන 10-15ක් තියෙනවා. ඉතින්, තමන්ට අදාළ විමර්ශනයක් ගැන සාක්ෂි දෙන්න උසාවියට ගිහින් දවසක් රස්තියාදු වුණාම අනෙක් විමර්ශන කරන්න වෙලාවක් ඔවුන්ට නැතිවෙනවා. පොලිස් නිලධාරීන්ට උසාවියට පැමිණෙන ලෙස නියෝග කළාම ඔවුන් එන්නේ නැහැ. ඔවුන් ප‍්‍රමාද වෙනකොට නඩුව ප‍්‍රමාදයි. අනෙක් පැත්තෙන් රජයේ සේවකයන් නඩුවලට සාක්ෂි සපයන්න මැලිකමක් දක්වනවා. ඒකට දේශපාලනය හේතුවෙනවා. උදාහරණයක් කීවොත් හිටපු ආණ්ඩුවේ ¥ෂණ වංචා ගැන නඩුවක් තියෙනවා නම් ඒ් ගැන නිලධාරීන් තොරතුරු දෙන්නේ නැහැ. දැන් හමුදාවට අදාළ නඩුවල ප‍්‍රශ්නය ඒකයි. අද සෑහෙන අඩු වුණත්, දේශපාලනඥයන් නඩුවලට මැදිහත් වෙනවා. නාවික හමුදාවට අදාළ නඩුව එක් උදාහරණයක්. ඇතැම් අපරාධ නඩුවල චුදිතයන් විශේෂ වරප‍්‍රසාද බවත් පෙනෙන්න ත ියෙනවා.

අපරාධ නඩු සම්බන්ධයෙන් තියෙන අලූත්ම තත්වය තමයි විමර්ශනයක් යන අතරේ, චුදිතයන් විමර්ශන වළක්වමින් ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයේ මූලික අයිතිවාසිකම් පෙත්සම් දැමීම. මම හිතන්නේ පරීක්ෂණ කටයුතුවලට මෙවැනි බාධක එල්ලකිරීම ගැළපෙන්නේ නැහැ.

ඞීඑන්ඒ වාර්තා, පරිගණක වාර්තා ආදිය ලබාගැනීම සඳහාත් පරීක්ෂණ ප‍්‍රමාද වෙනවාද?

දියුණු විදේශ රටවල නම්, ඞීඑන්ඒ ආදි පරීක්ෂණ කටයුතුවලට අවශ්‍ය වෙන විද්‍යාගාර තියෙන්නේ පොලිසියේම කොටසක් විදියට. ඒ විද්‍යාගාරවල වැඩ කරන්නේ පොලිසියේ සේවය කරන විශේෂඥයන්. අනෙක් කාරණය තමයි ඉලෙක්ට්‍රොනික් සාක්ෂි පරීක්ෂා කිරීම. ඒවාට අවශ්‍ය වෙන ඉලෙක්ට්‍රොනික් විද්‍යාගාරත් පොලිසිය සතුව නැහැ. දැනට සී.අයි.ඞී. එකේ විතරක් ඉලෙක්ට්‍රොනික් විද්‍යාගාරයක් තියෙනවා. විද්‍යාගාර නැති හින්දා ඞීඑන්ඒ අරගෙන ඒවා විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයකට හෝ වෙනත් ආයතනයකට යවන්න ඕනෑ. ඒවායේ වාර්තාව එන්න මාස හයක් විතර ගතවෙනවා. පුපුරන ද්‍රව්‍ය පිළිබඳ වාර්තාවක් රජයේ රස පරීක්ෂකගෙන් ඉල්ලා සිටියොත්, ඒ වාර්තාව එන්න තව මාස හයක් ගතවෙනවා. එක් නිලධාරියෙක් වාර්තාව හදලා එක් තැනකින් තවත් තැනකට යවන්න මාස පහක් හයක් යන අවස්ථා තියෙනවා. අනාගතයේදී නව තාක්ෂණය සම්බන්ධ නඩු සෑහෙන එනවා. ඒවාට ගැළපෙන විදියට ආයතන පද්ධතිය වෙනස් වෙන්න ඕනෑ.

මේ සාක්ෂි මහේස්ත‍්‍රාත් උසාවියක් ඉදිරියට අරගෙන යන්න ඕනෑ. සාමාන්‍යයෙන් මහේස්ත‍්‍රාත් උසාවියක එක් වාරයක් ඇතුළේ නඩු 100ක් විතර තියෙනවා. ඒවා එකින් එක කැඳවලා ඉවරකරලා, විභාගයට අන්තිමට ඕනෑ නම් පැය තුනක් පමණ ඉතිරිවේවි. මේ ඔක්කෝම නඩු ප‍්‍රමාද කරන්න හේතුවෙනවා. ඒ අතරතුරේ නීතිඥවරුන් තමන්ට ඕනෑ විදියට දින ගන්නවා. නඩුකාරවරුන්ට වැඩ වැඩියි. ඔවුන් අසනීප වෙනවා. නීත ිපති දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව පැත්තෙන් විමර්ශන කටයුතු ප‍්‍රමාද වෙන්නේ කොහොමද?

හැම නඩුවකම අවසානයේදී නඩුව මෙහෙයවීම කරන්නේ නීතිපතිවරයා. විශේෂයෙන්ම මහාධිකරණයේ නඩු පවත්වාගෙන යන්න පුළුවන් වෙන්නේ නීතිපතිට විතරයි. විමර්ශනයකින් පස්සේ නඩුවක් නීතිපතිවරයාට ගියාම එතැනදී අධිචෝදනා පත‍්‍රය සකස් කරන්න කොච්චර කාලයක් යනවාද කියලා කාටවත් කියන්න බැහැ. සමහර කාලවල මාස හයෙන්. තවත් කාලයක ඊට වඩා සෑහෙන වැඩියි. ලංකාවේ ජනගහනයට සාපේක්ෂව නීතිපති දෙපාර්තමේන්තුවට සිටිය යුතු නිලධාරීන් ප‍්‍රමාණයෙක් 50%ක් පමණයි ඉන්නේ. ඒ නිලධාරීන්ටත් වැඩි අධිකයි. අපි හිතමු නිලධාරියෙකුට පිටු 1000ක නඩු ගොනුවක් ලැබුණා කියලා. ඔවුන් ඒවා කියවන්න ඕනෑ උසාවියට ගිහින් ආවාට පස්සේ. ඇතැම්විට උසාවිය අවසාන වෙලා එන්නේ හවස තුනට. එතකොට මොන තරම් පොඩි වෙලාවක්ද ඉතිරි වෙන්නේ. සමහර නිලධාරීන් එකවර නඩු 25ක් පමණ අඩුම තරමේ මෙහෙයවනවා. අනෙක් පැත්තෙන් රජයේ දෙපාර්තමේන්තුවල තියෙන පොදු ප‍්‍රශ්නයක් නීතිපති දෙපාර්තමේන්තුවේත් තියෙනවා. ඒ තමයි සමහරු ඉහළින්ම වැඩ කරද්දී තවත් අය වැඩ කරන්නේම නැහැ. මේ ගැන විහිළුවට කියන්නේ ‘සම් ආ හාර්ඞ්වර්කින් හා සම් ආ හාර්ඞ්ලි වර්කින්’ කියලා. අනෙක් රජයේ නිලධාරීන්ට වගේම නීතිපති දෙපාර්තමේන්තුවේ දක්ෂ නිලධාරීන්ටත් ඉහළට යන්න ක‍්‍රමවේදයක් නැහැ. යා හැක්කේ ජ්‍යෙෂ්ඨත්වය මත පමණයි. ඇතැම් අතිදක්ෂ නිලධාරීන්ට ඉහළ සිටින අය විශ‍්‍රාම යන තෙක් උසස්වීම් නැහැ. මෙහෙම පසුබිමක මේ ආයතන කාර්යක්ෂම නැහැ.

විමර්ශනය වෙන නඩුවලින් 10%කවත් විමර්ශනය යන අතරේ නීතිපති දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව එක්ක කොහෙත්ම සම්බන්ධ වෙන්නේ නැහැ. එතකොට උද්ධෘත ගොනුව ආවාට පස්සේ, මොනවා හරි ප‍්‍රශ්නයක් අ ැතිවුණොත් පොලිස් නිලධාරීන් ගෙන්වන්න ඕනෑ. එතකොට හිටපු නිලධාරීන් නැත්නම් අලූත් නිලධාරීන් දන්නේ නැහැ වෙච්ච දේ. ඒවා නිසාත් නඩු ප‍්‍රමාද වෙනවා. වෙනත් රටවල නම් නීතිපති නිලධාරීන්, පරීක්ෂණ නිලධාරීන් හා වෙනත් විශේෂඥයන් එකට වාඩිවෙලා තමයි සැලසුම් හදන්නේ. ඉස්සර ආකල්පයක් තිබුණා විමර්ශකයන් හා නීතිපති නිලධාරීන් එකට වැඩ කරද්දී ගැටීමක් ඒවි කියලා. ඒත් දැන් දියුණු රටවල් එකකවත් ඒ ආකල්පය නැහැ. එකට වැඩ කළ පමණින් විමර්ශකයා කියන හැමදේම නීතිපති නිලධාරියා විශ්වාස කළයුතු නැහැ. යල් පැනගිය විදියට හිතන ඇතැම් නිලධාරීන් විමර්ශනය අවසාන වෙනතෙක් පොලීසිය දෙස බලන්නේවත් නැහැ. අවසානයේ පොලීසිය විමර්ශන වාර්තාව එව්වාම වසර ගණනාවකට පස්සේ නැවතත් ෆයිල් එක යවනවා, මේ දේවල් අඩුයි කියලා දන්වමින්.

අපරාධ නඩුවල සාක්ෂිකරුවන් හා වින්දිතයන් ඉන්නවා. අධිකරණවල නඩු ප‍්‍රමාදය නිසා මේ අය ස්වාධීනව අධිකරණයට එන්න මැලිකමක් දක්වනවා. ඉදිරිපත් වෙන කෙනෙක් වුණත් දහ වතාවක් හිතනවා. ඇක්සිඩන්ට් එකක් වුණ මනුස්සයෙක්ව රෝහලට අරගෙන යනකොටත් මනුස්සයෙක් පසුබට වෙනවා. උසාවි ගානේ රස්තියාදු වෙන්න වේවි කියලා. අපරාධයක් නම් කොහොමත් මඟහරින්න උත්සාහ කරනවා. ඒකත් අපරාධ නඩු කල් යන්නට හේතුවෙනවා.

සිවිල් නඩු ප‍්‍රමාද වෙන්නේ මොන හේතු නිසාද?

ඉඩම් නඩුවක් උදාහරණයට ගත්තොත්, ඒවා පරම්පරා දෙක තුනක් යන අවස්ථා තියෙනවා. මොකද ඒවායේ සාක්ෂිකරුවන් ලැයිස්තුගත කරන්න, ඉඩම් මනින්න ඕනෑ. ඉඩම් මනින්න මිනින්දෝරුවන් හොයාගන්න ප‍්‍රමාද වීම වගේ හේතු තියෙනවා. ඒ ප‍්‍රශ්න විසඳන්න උත්සාහයන් තියෙනවා.

ඉහළම උසාවිවල නඩු ප‍්‍රමාදය ග ැන කතාකළොත්..

ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයේ හා අභියාචනාධිකරණයේ විභාගයට ගැනෙන නඩු ලැයිස්තුව කලින් එනවා. සාමාන්‍යයෙන් එක් උසාවියකට නඩු 30කට වඩා තියෙනවා. ත‍්‍රිපුද්ගල විනිසුරු මණ්ඩල දෙකක් යටතේ. මේ හැම එකක්ම විභාග වෙන නඩු නෙවෙයි. සමහර ඒවා කැඳවන නඩු. කැඳවන නඩුවලට සෑහෙන වෙලාවක් ගතවෙනවා. මේ කැඳවීමේ කටයුත්ත සාමාන්‍ය ලිපිකරුවෙක් ලවා කරන්න පුළුවන් දෙයක්. දියුණු අධිකරණ පද්ධතියක නම් කැඳවන නඩුවක් උසාවියට එන්නේ නැහැ. ඒ නඩුව විභාග කිරීම සඳහා තමයි කෙළින්ම නඩුව උසාවියට එන්නේ. අපේ රටේ එහෙම නැති හින්දා නඩු සංඛ්‍යාව වැඩියි. ඒත් ඒක ප‍්‍රමාදය පිළිබඳ නිදහසට කරුණක් නෙවෙයි. මම අවුරුදු තිහක් විතර තිස්සේ අධිකරණයේ ඉන්නවා. ඉස්සර ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයේ නඩු දහයක් විතර තමයි තියෙන්නේ. ඒවායින් තුනක් පමණ විභාග වෙන නඩු. ඒ තුනම විභාගයට ගන්නවා. කල් යන්නේ නැහැ.
තවත් කාරණයක් තමයි පොදු නඩුවලදී විරෝධතා ගොනුකිරීමට ප‍්‍රමාද වීම. බොහොම කලාතුරකින් තමයි නීතිපති දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව නියමිත දිනයට විරෝධතා ගොනුකරන්නේ. ඉතාම වැදගත්කමකින් යුක්ත නඩු මිසක්, සාමාන්‍යයෙන් පොදු නඩුවලදී ඒක සිද්ධවෙනවා. ඉස්සර නම් මාස තුනක් ඇතුළත ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයේ නඩුවක තීන්දුව දුන්නා. අද අවුරුදු ගණන් ඇදෙන නඩු තියෙනවා. අනෙක් කාරණය තමයි, ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයේ නඩු තීන්දුවට දිනයක් දෙන්නේ නැහැ. අනෙක් හැම උසාවියේම දෙනවා. ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයේ යම් නඩුවක් අතරතුර නඩුකාරවරයෙක් විශ‍්‍රාම ගියොත් ආපහු මුල ඉඳන් නඩුව විභාගයට ගන්න සිද්ධවෙනවා. මොන තරම් දක්ෂ විනිසුරුවරයෙක්ට වුණත් වැඩ කරන්න පුළුවන් ප‍්‍රමාණයක් තියෙනවානේ. ඒ ප‍්‍රමාණය ඉක්මවලා වැඩ තියෙද්දී, ඒවා කරන එක මානුෂික වශයෙන් අමාරු වැඩක්. එතකොට මම අර කීව තරම් නඩු, දවසක් ඇතුළේ විභාග කරන්න බැහැ.

නීත ිඥවරුන්ගේ ක‍්‍රියාකාරීත්වය නිසාත් අ ැතැම් විට එවැනි නඩු ප‍්‍රමාද වෙනවා නේද?

අධිකරණයේ නඩු පරිපාලනයක් නැහැ. බොහෝ දියුණු රටවල ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයේ නඩුවකට කාලයක් තියෙනවා. බොහෝවිට උපරිම වශයෙන් පැය දෙකයි. නීතිඥයෙකුට දේශනයක් කරන්න පුළුවන් වෙන්නේ පැය භාගයයි. කිසිම අයුරකින් විශේෂ වරප‍්‍රසාද ලබන නීතිඥවරුන් නැහැ. අපි දිවුරුම් දුන්න මුල් කාලයේදී සමහර නීතිඥවරුන් දවස් දෙක තුනක් දේශන ඉදිරිපත් කළා. ඒ කාලයේ නඩු අඩුයි. දැන් කාලසීමාව ප‍්‍රශ්නයක්. අදත් සමහරු එක නඩුවේ දේශන පැය ගණන් ඉදිරිපත් කරනවා. අනෙක් නීතිඥවරුන්, වෙනත් නඩුවලට ආ අය ඇතුළු සියලූම දෙනා දවස තිස්සේ බලාගෙන ඉන්න ඕනෑ. මම හිතන්නේ නීතිඥවරුන්ට පැය භාගයක වගේ කාලසීමාවක් දෙන්න ඕනෑ. මේ ගැන යම් විනිශ්චයකාරවරුන්ගේ කැමැත්තක් තියෙනවා. ඒත් මම හිතන්නේ නැහැ හැම විනිශ්චයකාරවරයෙක්ම හා හැම නීතිඥවරයෙක්ම මේකට කැමති වේවි කියලා.

ඉහළ අධිකරණවල තවත් ප‍්‍රශ්නයක් තමයි සීමිත නීතිඥවරු පිරිසක් අතිවිශාල නඩු ප‍්‍රමාණයක් බාරගෙන සිටීම. ඔවුන් එක් උසාවියක නඩුවක් යන අතරේ අනෙක් උසාවියට ගිහින් නඩුවලට වෙනත් දින ලබාගන්නවා. ඒත් හරි නම් වෙන්න ඕනෑ නඩුව තියෙන වෙලාවට තමන්ට එන්න බැරි නම් වෙන නීතීඥයෙක්ව හරි ඉදිරිපත් කරලා නඩුව ඉදිරියට ගෙන යන එකයි. අධිකරණයේ සුවිශේෂ වරප‍්‍රසාද ලබන නීතිඥවරු ඉන්න බැහැ. දෙතුන්දෙනෙක්ට විශේෂ වරප‍්‍රසාද තිබෙන බව පෙනුණොත් සේවාදායකයන් ඔවුන් වෙත යොමුවෙනවා. ඇතැම්විට ඒ නීතිඥවරුන්ට විශේෂ දක්ෂතාවක් නැහැ. අනෙක නඩු සඳහා දින ලබාදෙනකොට නීතිඥවරුන් කියන දිනයක් තමයි දෙන්නේ. නීතිඥවරු ඉල්ලන දිනය සාධාරණ නම් ඒ දිනය ලබාදෙන්න පුළුවන්. 1980 මුලදී එංගලන්තයේ මේ ප‍්‍රශ්නය ඇවිත්, ඔවුන් රාජකීය කොමිසමක් පත්කළා. ඔවුන් කීවා නඩු කල් යන්නට හේතුව නීතිඥවරුන්ට ඕනෑ විදියට දින ලබාදීම බව. ඒ නිසා දින ලබාදීම අධිකරණය විසින් කළ යුතු බව තීන්දු කළා. එතකොට කාටවත් වරප‍්‍රසාද නෑ. උසාවිය ලබාදෙන දිනවලට යන්න ඕනෑ. නීතිඥවරුන්ගේ පහසුව වෙනුවට, අධිකරණයේ පහසුව කියන ක‍්‍රමයට පරිවර්තනය වෙන්න ඕනෑ බව එංගලන්තයේ රාජකීය කොමිසම තීන්දු කළා. අතිශය සාධාරණ හේතුවක් තිබුණොත් නීතිඥවරයෙක්ට දින ලබාදීම සාධාරණ බව ඇත්ත.

නීතිඥවරුන්ගේ පැත්තෙන් වුණත් උසාවිය කියන්නේ බොහොම බරපතළ කාලය කාදැමීමක්. සමහර වෙලාවට විනාඩි දහයක වැඩක් වෙනුවෙන් උසාවිය පටන්ගත් මොහොතේ පටන් හවස් 3.30 දක්වා වෙනත් කෙනෙකුගේ දේශන අහගෙන ඉන්න ඕනෑ. ඉගෙනගන්නා කෙනෙකුට මේක හොඳ වුණත්, මේ ප‍්‍රමාදයේ ඵලදායිතාවක් නැහැ. මේක ඵලදායි වෙන්නට, මම දැනගන්න ඕනෑ මගේ නඩුව ගන්නේ 1.30ට නම් මම ඒ වෙලාවට යන්න ඕනෑ බව. උදේ ඉඳන් බලාගෙන ඉන්න ඕනෑ නැහැ.

විනිශ්චයකාරවරුන්ගේ කාර්යක්ෂමතාව ගැනත් කතාකළ යුතුයි නේද?

දැනට ඉන්න අභියාචනාධිකරණයේ විනිශ්චයකාරවරයෙක් ගැන පහුගිය කාලයේදී කතාබහට ලක්වුණා. නඩු තීන්දු
ගණනාවක තීන්දුව තියා ෆයිල් එකවත් නැහැ. ඒත් මේවා ගැන කිසිකෙනෙක් බලන්නේ නැහැ. ලංකාවේ නඩුකාරවරුන්ගේ කටයුතු අධීක්ෂණයට ලක්වෙන්නේ නැහැ. පහළ අධිකරණ අධිකරණ සේවා කොමිෂන් සභාව මඟින් අධීක්ෂණයට ලක්වෙනවා. ඒත් ඉහළ අධිකරණ අධික්ෂණය වෙන්නේ නැහැ. සමහර විනිසුරුවරුන් විශ‍්‍රාම යද්දී නඩු තීන්දු සිය ගණන් ලියලා නැහැ. ජ්‍යෙෂ්ඨ නීතිඥවරුන් කියලා ඉන්න අයවත් අධීක්ෂණයට ලක්වෙන්නේ නැහැ. අපේ වාසනාවකට වගේ අධීක්ෂණයට ලක් නොවුණත්, දක්ෂ ලෙස වැඩකරන විනිසුරුවරුන් බොහොමයක් ඉන්නවා. ඒත් මේ පද්ධතියේ තියෙන ප‍්‍රශ්න නිසා මනුෂ්‍යයන් වශයෙන් සීමාකම්වලට මුහුණදෙන්නට ඔවුන්ට සිද්ධවෙනවා.

අධිකරණ සේවා කොමිෂන් සභාව වැනි ආයතනයකට මේවා වෙනස්කම් කිරීමේ හැකියාවක් නැද්ද?

ඔව්. මේ ඔක්කෝම සම්බන්ධයි. අධිකරණවල නඩු ඉක්මන් කරන්න කියලා අධිකරණ සේවා කොමිෂන් සභාව අවස්ථා කිහිපයකදීම චක‍්‍රලේඛ නිකුත් කළා. ඒක ඉතාම සද්භාවයෙන් කරන ක‍්‍රියාවක්. ඒත් ඒවායින් පමණක් නඩු ඉක්මන් කරන්න බැහැ. නඩුකාරයෙක්ට හවස හය වෙනතුරු නඩු අහන්න කී පමණින් ක‍්‍රියාවලිය ඉදිරියට ගෙනියන්න බැහැ. අපරාධ නඩු, සිවිල් නඩු හා පොදු නඩු තමයි තියෙන්නේ. මේ විවිධ නඩු වර්ගවලට අදාලව විවිධ ප‍්‍රායෝගික ප‍්‍රශ්න නිරාකරණය කළ යුතුව තියෙනවා. ලංකාවේ තියෙන්නේ අධිකරණ සේවා කොමිෂන් සභාව. ඒ වගේ විදේශ රටවල තියෙන ආයතනවල ඉන්නේ අධිකරණය නියෝජනය කරන අය විතරක් නෙවෙයි. ඒවාට සාමාන්‍ය ජනතාව නියෝජනය කරමින්, සමාජයේ ගෞරවය ලද පුද්ගලයන් සහභාගි වෙනවා. ඒ නිසා ඔවුන් සාමාන්‍ය ජනතාවගේ අවශ්‍යතා නියෝජනය කරමින්, අධිකරණයේ කාර්යක්ෂමතාව ගැන සැලකිලිමත් වෙනවා. 

By Compelo Staff Writer Courtesy Compelo

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has laid the foundation stone on a new $3.85bn oil refinery in Hambantota in the country’s Southern Province.

The oil refinery, which will be built within the Mirijjawila Export Processing Zone, will be owned by Silver Park International, a Singapore company controlled by India-based Accord Group, alongside the Omani government.

The new fuel refinery and storage facility is expected to have an overall production capacity of 200,000 barrels a day, reported Sri Lanka’s official government news portal News.lk. As per the publication, the project is believed to involve the single largest foreign investment in Sri Lankan history.

Accord Group’s subsidiary will hold a stake of 70% in the oil refinery while Oman’s oil ministry will take the remaining 30% stake, said Sri Lankan officials. The Accord entity will fully own the storage tanks of the petroleum refinery.

The production from the new oil refinery is targeted for the export market and the four-year project is planned to be executed in two stages of two years each.

The first phase of the petroleum refinery is estimated to be built with an investment of $1.85bn, which will be paid for by Accord Group. On the other hand, the construction and operation of the second phase of the refinery is estimated to cost $2bn, which will be handled by the Accord-Oman venture, as per the Sri Lankan investment board officials.

The Sri Lankan investment board also revealed that Oman Trading International has proposed to supply the entire feedstock needed by the Hambantota refinery, in addition to taking up the marketing for gasoline and other refined oil products produced by it.

The oil refinery will be Accord Group’s first foray into oil refining, reported Reuters, with the company already engaged in electricity generation, brewing and healthcare.

The refinery is planned to be constructed adjacent to an investment zone planned by China Harbour Engineering and also to a port controlled by China Merchants Port. As per an Omani government website, China is the biggest buyer of oil produced by Oman, importing nearly 80% of the country’s overall exports of crude oil in January.

Courtesy Adaderana

Five persons, including Geoffrey Aloysius, the Chairman of Perpetual Treasuries Limited (PTL) and father of PTL owner Arjun Aloysius, who were arrested by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) have been produced before the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court, stated Ada Derana reporter.

Accordingly, the five suspects have been remanded until the 05th of April as per the order of the magistrate.

Geoffrey Aloysius, former Central Bank Deputy Governor P. Samarasiri and the three directors of the Perpetual Treasuries Limited (PTL) were arrested by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) over the Bond Scam at their respective residences, this morning (25).

The arrested three Directors of PTL are namely, Pushpamithra Gunawardena, Chithra Ranjan Hulugalla and Muthuraja Surendran.

• 

The subject of race & racial prejudice in Sri Lanka will not be understood unless we have a clear idea of how race & racial prejudiced traveled through history & time to be embedded into society & the psyche of people. We continue to return to colonial rule where every ill the world suffers today – from ethnic tensions, artificial borders & boundaries, plunder of resources, racial prejudices etc were all part of the divide & rule strategies that have traversed through time, the colonial administrative & educational & religious ideological systems that were rolled out in every country except for the 11 nations that were never colonized.

UNESCO Declaration on Race & Racial Prejudice in 1978 claims its objective of promoting collaboration among nations through education, science & culture for the rule of law & human rights & fundamental freedoms without distinction of race, sex, language or religion.

Before the age of discovery & before Western European explorers advocated the ‘doctrine of discovery’ of lands that were already inhabited going so far as to declare it their right to convert natives or murder those that refused to be converted – people lived without any of the nomenclatures now in vogue in the halls of the UN & international systems all of which were created by the ‘victors’ of world wars completely ignoring the native & indigenous laws, customs, systems that were followed by them and were successful to such extents that they had no prisons, they required no lawyers, they had no police, surveillance, cameras etc.

Exactly when did racism and the use of racism originate? So far as records reveal the use of the term racism began when colonials who were illegally occupying territories & nations went so far as to even commence census with race & caste being demarcated. Though caste existed in ancient times it was only used to identify people & not project a notion of superior/inferiority as happened during colonial rule & this set the foundation for the mentality to think racially, to think of people as being inferior or superior & subject them to a new class of haves – have nots – rich-poor-middle class.

All these terms were coined by Western European rulers and used as part of their divide & rule strategy. However, so long as the originators of these terms do not accept their accountability in dividing the world, societies, people etc we will never find a solution to the problem. More importantly, the problem creators have no moral right in championing any solution knowing they are the cause of the problem (s)

Who started institutionalized racism – the West.  Apartheid, racial segregation in USA, humans categorized as blacks, browns, yellows & slaves, put into zoos & charged fees for white audiences to gloat over, slave trade – all of these were embedded into society by the white colonial rulers & the systems they created. Not only did the white colonial rulers segregate people classifying them but they introducing institutionalized system to make these segregations official.

Let us also not forget that man evolved in Africa – therefore, Africans spread to all corners of the world some 48,000 years ago to start different civilizations. 100% white skinned people emerged only some 3000 years ago. Europe was occupied by black-skinned people for some 48,000 years

Let us not forget the many tribes & races that the Western European explorers made extinct in South Americas, Australia/New Zealand & even Africa & parts of Asia. Even their ancient languages, heritage & cultures were made extinct as well. What happened to the ancient civilizations of Incas, Aztecs etc after Europeans landed on their original habitats.

Let us not forget that any convention cannot omit to hold to account all nations that committed genocide as a policy. What we see today happening is media hype about ‘genocide’ with no proper evidence as seen in the lies flagged about Srebrenica genocide or the 40,000 ‘genocide’ in Sri Lanka. However, under white colonial rule millions of people were exterminated by evil methods the white rulers created.

Let us not forget more Germans died after the World War ended than during the war – more than 2m German women were said to have been raped. What was done as accountability for these crimes? Just because the white rulers committed the crime the excuse cannot be let past be forgotten!

Let us also not forget that part of the divide & rule policy of the Western explorers was to remove the heritage culture, traditions & denationalize the natives. Therefore, how can the UN claim to protect cultures & seek international cultural cooperation while ignoring these ground realities? No culture can be brought to one platform and made equal to another. Every culture is unique & the need is to ensure everyone learns to respect other cultures without trying to destroy, remove, dilute or transfer another culture to replace it. Forced assimilation is what happened to natives forced to accept & embrace Western cultures that were foreign to them.

How racially tolerant is the first world West that keeps pointing fingers at non-Western developing world nations? Of the 2.2m prison population in US close to 30% are blacks. Statistics reveal disproportionate arrests of non-whites, attacks on non-whites, employment discriminations at every level, difference in salaries to non-whites as well as lower wages for females doing same job as males. Statistics in EU & UK also reveal similar racial discrimination – racial gestures, comments, threats, unable to rent homes because of their skin colour etc.

Stereotype racial discriminations are embedded into media/communications & educational systems as well – everything good is projected as white – everything bad is projected as black so psychologically from childhood onwards the presumption is that whites are the preferred people. The same media tends to always scoff at the traditions & cultures of developing world to the level that they are primitive – this is a carried forward from the ‘white man’s burden’ notion of ‘civilizing’ non-whites that was prevalent in colonial rule.

No universal declaration using fancy terms & slogans can erase the fact that countries of the West are continuing colonial endeavors through neo-colonial imperialism where with the power of institutional financial bodies developing world are kept in debt repaying interests on the loans taken while the loan which is created money ends up subjecting countries to various structural adjustments that reduce the quality of life to their citizens – removal of national welfare schemes, free health, free education, various handouts by the government to the poor & impoverished are always insisted to be cut by these international institutions. Why? Isn’t the outcome creating a bigger bridge & inequality with rich getting richer & poor getting poorer. Where has the world actually progressed when OXFAM says 1% own the accumulated wealth of the 99% in the world – 8 men own wealth of accumulated wealth of world’s 3.5billion people. How inequal is the world inspite of all the equality slogans?

With these ground realities we look at Sri Lanka’s case of racism & racial discrimination.

There are 3 main ethnic groups in Sri Lanka of which the majority is Sinhalese & the minority ethnic groups are Tamil & Muslims while in terms of religion Buddhists are the majority & Hindus, Islam & Christianity/Catholicism are the minorities.

Anyone who advocates notion of Sri Lanka having racial or religious discrimination has to first answer these questions

• What is it that the minorities exclusively suffer because they are a minority that the majority does not suffer because they are the majority?

• What are grievances exclusive to the minorities that the majority does not equally suffer

• What are the special privileges accrued to the majority because they are a majority that which is denied to the minorities because they are a minority?

• The constitution of Sri Lanka gives right of freedom to all citizens to live where they like – can Sinhalese live & own land in the North & parts of East without having to face protests, demonstrations & abuse by minorities?

• Can Sinhalese buy land, start business ventures, live & work in parts of North & East as easily as minorities can buy land, start business, live & work in parts of South

• Have the majority built places of religious worship as many as the minorities have built around the island in the past 20 years?

• Is the strategy of the minorities to indulge in unfair practices & then when fault is pointed use ‘minority being discriminated’ card locally & internationally & push for a compromise that wins them something illegal & questionable that they tried to get & now getting it officially because they cried ‘minority being discriminated’ scaring Sinhala politicians into inactions!

• Do media cover wrongs (grievances) to majority proportionate to the ethnic ratio through their media channels?

• Do Sinhalese politicians voice grievances of majority as boldly as minority politicians unfairly make demands?

• Do minorities get treated in the majority areas as the majority get treated if they go to non-majority areas?

• Do majority voters vote only because the politician belongs to their community?

• Do minority voters vote only because the politician belongs to their community?

All those who promote notion of discrimination must first explain the number of minorities holding positions in Govt, public sector, private sector from junior to senior positions.

Every allegation that has been presented & promoted over the years can be easily negated by evidence based examples & if international agencies & UN shed their bias and stuck to collecting data & evidence instead of promoting slogans.

Shenali D Waduge

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS

In terms of economics, investment considers as an essential requirement of an economy for its expansion and an effective variable for solving many macroeconomic problems in a country. Classical economic theory indirectly ruled that investment should be equal to savings but the dynamism and macroeconomic problems in countries have forced many governments go beyond the equilibrium condition.  Many countries need to stress in budget spending as recurrent spending and capital spending that force to go beyond the classical theory. When there is a gap between the investment and savings, the borrowing to cover the gap would be the best option, if any other measures such as taxes and charging for government services, grants from overseas, excess from public enterprises and selling public assets would not practically possible.

The direct result of the borrowing option may increase in indebtedness and creating many fiscal problems in a country. The debt service also increases when the budget spending uses the borrowing as a way of covering the budget deficit.  Therefore, increase in investment from domestic and foreign revenue (without debt) and direct foreign investment is a difficult task unless like President Premadasa did, the printing money for government spending.  This is a summary of investment in terms of economic theory and it should not forget the factors that as Schumpeter pointed out in relation to investment and entrepreneurship, investors would not motivate for investment in Sri Lanka without reasonable and competitive returns. 

The role of the managers of the economy would be supposed to act within constraints and going to targets without creating unfavourable effects from scam investors to the country.  This is a hard task as dynamism, competition, technology and social culture such as environmental variables seem to be impact on the decision-making process of investment and related issues in investment management.  Many countries including developed countries as well as developing countries have faced to these wider problems and there is an intense competition for attracting investments in developed countries and developing countries.  The best example is, we can see that America is competing with its friendly countries to attract investment and sometimes it gets unfriendly decisions violating or hating USA decisions from friendly countries.

Anfractuous strategy of certain investors in some countries in the competition of attracting investments has become a significant problem to many countries like Sri Lanka and other developing countries. The competition has led to increase in corruptions in Sri Lanka that has different faces at different levels and anfractuous strategy of dishonest investors have created political, social and international cooperation related problems in Sri Lanka. The major weakness in Sri Lanka appears that the nature, practice and purposes of corruption elements in relation to investment have not accurately identified by the responsible authority due to serious debility in investment analysis and political influences toward the investment decision making. The investment analysis process has no transparency with a participation of opposition and responsible independent cognizant personnel and it is a closed process of the analysis, which promotes or allows to anfractuous strategy of so-called potential investors. The process is trusted by the government politicians as many members of the analysis and decision making are henchmen of government politicians. I have seen a video cut and a budget debate in the parliament of Sri Lanka that a government politician was too much talking about possibly a fake investment in Hambantota area, and an ancestor of the politician was a highly corrupt person during the initiation of the market economic system.

In the investment analysis process, there may be unique policies at bureaucratic level but they are unknown to public as well as politicians. The practical environment in Sri Lanka has undisclosed and hidden corrupt elements.  Transparency in this process is hidden as it might generate risk to decision making as well as investors decisions.

Many Asian countries have been encountered crookedness related issues in investment and international politics also contributed a considerable influence to this scam investments. For example, Chinese investments in Sri Lanka are demurred by India for purely a reason that India wants to attract such investments than going to Sri Lanka and such international politics suffer Chinese investments in Sri Lanka and such politics does harmful suffering to public in the country preventing investments.  The popular Indian protest to surrounding countries is that Chinese investment in South Asian countries would be a threat to Indian security. No South Asian countries want to challenge India on the ground of investments.

Sri Lanka has faced to anfractuous strategy of so-called potential investors from 1960s and the government development projects were subject to such strategies and an unpublished secret in relation to foreign investments in Sri Lanka is that 40% – 50% of total foreign direct investments goes to corrupt personnel and people of Sri Lanka don’t enjoy the real economic benefits of foreign investments. For example, many irrigation projects can be highlighted.

As I understand the first large scale anfractuous strategy of foreign investors recorded in relation to the project of developing Oil Tanks in Trincomalee, which was subject to investments of Indian and Singapore companies.  When look back we can see that Sri Lanka has failed successfully developing the oil tank project and generate benefits. Another Oil Refinery Project also was subject to talk but nobody seen the outcomes.   Since then many project proposals originated but many become failures.

We heard many international reports that dishonest investment strategists were punished in USA, UK, Germany, Russia and many other countries and a considerable number of these crooks were Indian investors. One LTTE related sinner investor was punished in USA.  This mean that investors from India, China, Malaysia, Singapore and many other countries must be subject to an intelligent analysis before they going to politicians’ platform and TV plays. After 2015, this situation in Sri Lanka has an upward trend as in the name of yahapalanaya politicians as well as crooks of political parties have associated with these scam investors to show off public that yahapalanaya was doing the right thing.

How can avoid this situation.  It is essential to develop strong policies for investment for both side investors and investee and such policy needs to be educated to public and investors. There is no argument that a Sharpe competition exists between countries to attract investors providing opportunity to scam investors.  Although Sri Lanka desperate for investments it should not consume poison from investment in scams.   

By Shivanthi Ranasinghe Courtesy Ceylon Today

By Shivanthi Ranasinghe

On 20 March, both Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Minister Naveen Dissanayaka were invited to a function at the Siri Gauthama Viharaya by Venerable Muruththettuwe Ananda Thera. Speaking at the function, Naveen Dissanayaka named Rajapaksa as the next presidential candidate. Thanking him, Rajapaksa also named both Naveen Dissanayaka and his father-in-law as possible contestants.

Rajapaksa’s candidacy does not really come as a surprise, to any. Having come from a military background many expect him to instil  discipline that is solely lacking in our society. Tamils and Muslims are also beginning to express confidence in him to promise what he can deliver and to deliver what he had promised.

As Dissanayaka accurately stated, at the function, governments are toppled by Sinhala Buddhist votes. Therefore, it is very important to give this vote base a hearing. In that context, GR’s opponent even with the full backing of the powerful West, resourceful Tamil Diaspora and the UNP, JVP and TNA vote banks will have his work cut out for him.

The Yahapalana Government came to power on the pledge to eliminate corruption and bring those who plundered the State, to justice. However, within 40 days of coming to power the Central Bank bond scam took place. A year later, the same scam was repeated. As a result, all interest rates have jumped to double digits.

The aftermath of the 2015 August General Election does not speak in Yahapalana’s favour. Prioritising the West’s agenda above all else, this Government has done a great disservice to democracy. Without Cabinet or Parliamentary approval or knowledge, the Yahapalana Government has entered into a number of international agreements detrimental to the country such as the Geneva Resolution and the Free Trade Agreement with Singapore.

Representation ignored

After the UPFA lost at the 2015 General elections, the 55 MPs that stubbornly stayed with MR represented eight out of the nine provinces. Yet, on mere technicality, the Yahapalana Government refused to acknowledge them as the Opposition. Instead, the TNA was recognised as such despite having only 16 seats from just two provinces.

Further to this travesty of democracy, the JO was also refused sufficient time to speak in  Parliament; in effect, the majority of the voters’ voice, which constituted largely that of the Sinhala Buddhists were suppressed. Even when Maithripala Sirisena unceremoniously sacked Ranil Wickremesinghe from premiership and appointed Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Yahapalana behaviour was not inspiring.

Leaving aside the political battle that ensured with the realignment of powers, one cannot agree with the drama orchestrated by not following Parliamentary procedures. This deliberate provocation led to the disgraceful fracas between the MR Camp and the RW Camp. However, much more contentiously, foreign delegates were invited to watch and cheer as tempers flared the fight.

Mockery of democracy

TNA was clearly in cahoots with the Government. As such they made a mockery of the very essence of democracy. TNA must be the only Opposition in the world to have beseeched a powerful neighbour (India) to protect the Government. (This request is not only at odds with democracy, but also with sovereignty as well.) Throughout its tenure as the Opposition, TNA failed to address the issues confronting the country or the grievances of the people – including those of their own constituencies.

The TNA’s only objective is to enmesh the country in war crime allegations and bring in the new Constitutional proposals pushed through by Geneva. If these new Constitutional proposals come to reality, it will not break the country into two, but fragment the country into nine semi-autonomous governments. This would not be devolution of power; for the Central Government would lose most of its power to the provinces. In fact, the Central Government could only function afterwards on the power donated by the provinces.

Very cunningly, TNA Spokesman M.A. Sumanthiran had assured that the TNA is also for a unitary country. However, the ‘country’ denotes the territorial landmass of Sri Lanka. Thus, no matter what the State structure (which is the country’s power base) would be, Sri Lanka would remain as one island.

Article 2 in the present Constitution specifies that the State of Sri Lanka would be unitary. It is to repeal this Article 2 that the TNA and other separatists are working, overtime. Clearly, TNA’s and other separatists’ fight is not with the ‘country’ but with the ‘State’.

Unless explained, the difference between the definition of the two words – country and State, the ordinary layperson would not easily distinguish between the two. This territorial integrity (country) can be easily misunderstood with the power base (State) as in Sinhala when the first is ‘rata’ (country) and the second is ‘rajaya’ (State).

Irrespective of the Constitution, only a very angry act of God can change the country from being unitary. Thus, when Sumanthiran assured that his party too supports a unitary country, he was playing a word game with the Sri Lankan citizens. He was clearly banking on the fact that many would not distinguish the difference between ‘rata’ and ‘rajaya’.

It is said that the Tamils are for a federal solution, whilst the Sinhalese want to retain the unitary status of the Sri Lankan State. The Sinhalese voice that can be heard independent to their political representatives, clearly stands by this assertion. The Tamil’s voice had from the beginning being overpowered by their political representatives. Therefore, it is difficult to know for certainty whether the Tamil voters actually want a federal Constitution.

Either way, if we are to assume that it is only the Sinhalese that do not wish for a federal Constitution, then Sumanthiran was trying to hoodwink the Sinhalese – majority of whom, are Buddhists.

Country and State

Sumanthiran et al are trying the same trick with the foremost place the current Constitution gives to Buddhism along with its pledge to nurture the Buddhist philosophy. This assurance is entrusted in Article 9. It is proposed in the new Constitution’s draft that from henceforth it will be the country, and not the State, that will nurture and ensure the foremost place given to Buddhism.

The ‘country’ as explained above is the territorial landmass. It is hence not a living being. Therefore, it cannot be responsible for the nurturing of Buddhism. The ‘State’ on the other hand is the power base. As Sri Lanka is a Republic, the State is where the supreme power is held by the people and their representatives. Therefore, it is only the State that can assure the nurturing the foremost place to Buddhism.

Whenever this debate heats up, the proponents of the new Constitution are quick to assure that Article 9 would not be touched. However, if a federal or a State with semi-autonomous Governments comes into effect, then Article 9 would automatically become nullified.

According to the Supreme Court’s definition, every place of Buddhist worship and historic significance and practice becomes part of the Buddhist Order. This makes entire Sri Lanka part of the Buddhist Order.

If the State structure changes as per the Constitutional draft, then the responsibility on Buddhism and Buddhist Culture falls to a provincial level. The State would no longer be responsible for the Buddhist Order. 

Therefore, even if Article 9 is left untouched, it becomes a dud deed as it cannot be put into effect under the proposed Constitution.

Throughout the past four years the Yahapalana Government and its subsequent residue had tried to play with the confidence entrusted on them by the people. Breaking the country into nine separate semi-autonomous governments will not benefit the people. Revoking the foremost place given to Buddhism that fosters the right for other religions to practice as they wish will not benefit the people.

Yet, the Yahapalana Government had been partners in both these concentrated moves. In addition, the Yahapalana Government had lied to and robbed from the people, whilst allowing the underworld to rise. All these are in contravention to Buddhist practices.

In an attempt to please the West, the Yahapalana Government and its residue had alienated all communities. They came to power on a pack of lies and they ruled for four years with another pack of lies. The contender from the Yahapalana camp will need a very creative campaign to overcome the damage the Yahapalanites wrought on themselves.

ranasingheshivanthi@gmail.com