{"id":63427,"date":"2017-02-15T16:26:49","date_gmt":"2017-02-15T23:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=63427"},"modified":"2017-02-15T16:26:49","modified_gmt":"2017-02-15T23:26:49","slug":"sri-lanka-to-develop-galle-yacht-marina-by-swiss-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/02\/15\/sri-lanka-to-develop-galle-yacht-marina-by-swiss-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka to develop Galle Yacht marina by ‘Swiss challenge’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr Sarath Obeysekera<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka will use the ‘Swiss Challenge’ method to identify a developer for a yacht marina in the Southern port of Galle.The Cabinet of Ministers had approved a proposal by Ports Minister Arjuna Ranatugna to find a investor to develop a Yacht marina in Galle by Swiss Challenge the state information office said.
\nThe Swiss challenge involves giving other parties a chance to better and proposal made by an unsolicited investor.
\nGalle port is already a popular port of call for ocean going yachts.
\nHowever Sri Lanka itself does not have a significant fleet of yachts, or marina or a culture of owning and using yachts despite being surrounded by the sea. (Colombo\/Feb11\/2017)<\/p>\n

In one of my articles I \u00a0defined how Swiss Challenge is executed in order to circumvent the award of contracts to a party with an \u00a0unsolicited proposals. General opinion among public and auditors is that Swiss Challenge may be a coveted way of awarding the contract to a known party ,and yet let other contenders have the right to overbid .And yet the original proposer who worked tirelessly hand in hand with the state agency has the right for first refusal .<\/p>\n

It could have been more transparent if the state agency calls EOI with basic guidelines and invite the interested parties to come up with their intent to work with the state agency at their own cost .Once a reliable party is selected ,state agency can work together and prepare the RFP together and advertise so that others can bid.<\/p>\n

Next problem we may face is whether government has to amend the FR and AR\u2019s so that Swiss Challenge Method cannot be challenged again for violation of\u00a0 Fundamental Rights.<\/p>\n

As an investor who has an agreement to develop part of the Galle Harbour as a Yacht Repair and Building yard ,we have been slapped\u00a0 with an \u00a0annual\u00a0 lease rates of\u00a0 land within the harbour in line with government valuer.We have noted that if any investor is forced to pay the same rates ,I can guarantee that investment will not be viable .<\/p>\n

SLPA should \u00a0also go ahead with building offshore breakwater\u00a0 with a soft loan from Jaica ( Japanese agency) .I am sure that investing in Galle harbour to be developed as a Marina will be viable.<\/p>\n

It has taken close to three years for us to get all relevant approvals to sign the investment agreement ,and I wonder whether tenure of the government will expire before signing of the investment agreement with SLPA for development of a Marina because our bureaucratic procedures take over three years to approve any project .<\/p>\n

We better keep eating Swiss Chocolates ,enjoy wearing Swiss Watches ,taste Swiss Cheese,use Swiss Knives \u00a0and enjoy everything Swiss rather than try to bite\u201d Swiss challenge .<\/p>\n

Dr Sarath Obeysekera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Sarath Obeysekera ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka will use the ‘Swiss Challenge’ method to identify a developer for a yacht marina in the Southern port of Galle.The Cabinet of Ministers had approved a proposal by Ports Minister Arjuna Ranatugna to find a investor to develop a Yacht marina in Galle by Swiss Challenge the state […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}