{"id":104377,"date":"2020-07-10T15:19:46","date_gmt":"2020-07-10T22:19:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=104377"},"modified":"2020-07-10T15:19:46","modified_gmt":"2020-07-10T22:19:46","slug":"mattala-airport-is-not-for-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/07\/10\/mattala-airport-is-not-for-sale\/","title":{"rendered":"Mattala Airport is not for sale"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne<\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n\n\n

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has made the difficult decision\nnot to sell the Mattala Airport to India. \nIt is the right decision and he deserves to be congradulated.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wrote about how the Mattala Airport and the Port of Hambantota\nhave to be activated back in 2014. That Paper is annexed because every detail\nof what I then wrote will hold good for today. Nothing happened in 2014 and we\nlost the Port during the regime of the UNP. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me hope that the contents of this Paper will reach our\nleaders President Gotabhaya and Prime Minister Mahinda. To make the Mattala\nAirport pay  is very simple.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly we must understand our resources.  The Chena cultivators in Hambantota and\nMoneragala have to be activated to plant melon, red pumkin, ash pumkin. A\nMarketing Department has to be re established with two of their earlier\nprogrammes- the vegetable and fruit purchasing scheme and the Cannery.  The MD can be created overnight. The cost of\ncreating it can be recouped within the very first year from the profits that\ncome in by the purchase of veg and fruit that is supplied to the Cannery.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Cannery has to be set up. A medium scale Cannery has to be\nimported and assembled. My take is that it can be done within three to four\nmonths judging at the speed I worked at Matara in 1971..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The produce is already there the chena cultivators will produce\nall the Red Pumpkin, Ash Pumpkin we need and Melon to make all the fruit Juice\nand Jam and within one year we will be self sufficiuent in Jam and Juice. The\nforeign exchange we spend to get imports of Jam and Juice today wil leasily\nmatch the production we make. We can grow Tomatoes and be self sufficient in\nitems like Tomatoe Sauce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I can find the equal of Assistant Commissioiner Oswald\nTillekeratne  we can even export\npineapple. He was in charge of the Cannery. We then exported 8% of our\npineapple products. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have seen children in Lunugamvehera running behind my car to\nsell us mangoes. Our crop of Mangoes is vast and half goes waste as we pluck to\nthe ground. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mattala Airport is to be used to export the products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is easily the way ahead. Someone in the Administrative\nService has to be put in charge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If there is none to bell the cat I can undertake, though\nlingering in my Eighties I can undertake that job.. A place in the Administrative\nService or an assignment will do that trick. Establishing a Marketing\nDepartment, a Cannery and getting it going will be far easier a task than\nestablishing the Youth Self Employment Programme in Bangladesh which I did in\n1983 when working as a consultant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If anyone confronts and tells that this cannot be done. I will\nbe there if intimated.- (garvin_karunaratne@ hotmail.com)  Once I had a two hours’ duel with the highest\nofficer in Bangladesh- the Secretary to the Treasury who contested my statement\nthat I will establish a self employment programme. He quoted the International\nLabour Organization\u2019s failure to establish a self employment programme after\ntrying for three years and getting down experts from all over. The Minister who\npresided at our duel Air Vice Marshall Aminul Islam, the Minister for Labour\nand Manpower was convinced of my arguments and immediately approved my\nestablishing a self employment programme. An entire Department of Youth\nDevelopment took orders from me and within nineteen months I established the\nprogramme and also trained the staff to continue it. Today that Programme is\nthe premium employment creation programme in the world and has by now guided\nthree million youths to become self employed. Establishing a Marketing Department\nand a Cannery is a far simpler task. If I had failed I would have been court\nmarshalled for wasting funds, as it was a military government<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will be a pleasure to work for my Motherland. and I am dead\ncertain that the task of establishing a Cannery can be accomplished and our\ncountry can also be self sufficient in all jam, Juice, Sauce and many more\nitems that are imported today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Rural Renaissance in\nthe Offing<\/strong>
\nPosted on January 12th, 2014 in Lanka Web<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Garvin Karunaratne<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

My travel to Kataragama in December 2013 took me to the Mattala Mahinda Rajapaksa Airport and via the new road that is being built through Lunugamvehera Tank to Kataragama.\u00a0 .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
A Rural Renaiussance in the Offing<\/a><\/blockquote>