{"id":79780,"date":"2018-07-31T16:35:20","date_gmt":"2018-07-31T23:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=79780"},"modified":"2018-07-31T16:35:27","modified_gmt":"2018-07-31T23:35:27","slug":"factual-information-regarding-moragahakanda-kalu-ganga-multipurpose-development-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/07\/31\/factual-information-regarding-moragahakanda-kalu-ganga-multipurpose-development-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Factual Information Regarding \u2018Moragahakanda Kalu Ganga\u2019 Multipurpose Development Project"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professor G.L. Peiris<\/strong> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Kirula Place, <\/strong>Off Kirula Road\u00a0<\/strong>Colombo 05 <\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

31.07.2018 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

REGISTERED POST<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Director General,<\/p>\n

Department of External Resources,<\/p>\n

Secretariat Building,<\/p>\n

Colombo 01<\/p>\n

Dear Sir,<\/p>\n

Factual Information Regarding \u2018Moragahakanda Kalu Ganga\u2019 Multipurpose Development Project <\/u><\/p>\n

I wish to invite your attention to the remarks made by His Excellency President Maithripala Sirisena at the \u2018Moragahakanda Kalu Ganga\u2019 multipurpose irrigation project ceremony held on 23rd<\/sup> July 2018. As a citizen of Sri Lanka and also as Chairman of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and Former Minister of External Affairs of the Government of Sri Lanka, I am keen to know the factual position regarding the implementation of \u2018Moragahakanda Kalu Ganga\u2019 multipurpose project in the backdrop of these remarks. His Excellency the President declared to the public at this ceremony that the project implementation and financing was not done by the Department of External Resources and that the benefit of having access to water, particularly to the people in poverty-stricken districts, had been denied by the previous government.<\/p>\n

As you are aware, I myself was a member of the Cabinet of that Government since 2007. I recall that the Cabinet on several occasions discussed many matters connected with the implementation of this project along with several other irrigation projects carried out Islandwide. I also recall that Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa had directed the Treasury to provide budgetary provision for this project along with several irrigation projects to undertake preparatory work such as land acquisition, resettlement engineering designs consultancies etc. as irrigation development was a major priority under Mahinda Chinthana Development framework.<\/p>\n

As part of my responsibility as Minister of External Affairs, I remember that I discussed foreign funding possibilities with the Ambassadors of Japan, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the respective Foreign Ministers of these countries at the request of then President Mahinda Rajapaksa to expedite implementation of the development project. I also recall that while the Government of Japan was not forthcoming with a positive response to \u2018Moragahakanda Kalu Ganga\u2019 multipurpose project, the Government of Saudi Arabia agreed to fund the \u2018Kalu Ganga\u2019 segment of this project. This was as far back as 2007. A positive funding response subsequently came from the China Development Bank with USD 300 million on 15-year term credit for the \u2018Moragahakanda Kalu Ganga\u2019 segment of the project together with a 30 MW hydro power project in 2012.<\/p>\n

As I have actively participated in the national budget debates in Parliament and keenly followed documents and reports submitted by the Ministry of Finance and the Department of External Resources in terms of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2003, I remember this project had started well before 2010 along with several other projects such as \u00a0\u2018Manik Ganga\u2019 (completed in 2009) , \u2018Kirama Oya\u2019 (completed in 2010), \u2018Uma Oya\u2019 multipurpose irrigation scheme (commencing 2009 with Iranian Fund), \u2018Deduru Oya\u2019 (commencing 2006 and to be completed in 2012) and \u2018Rambukkan Oya\u2019 (commencing 2007), \u2018Moragahakanda\u2019 and \u2018Kalu Ganga\u2019 commencing 2007 and other preliminary work connected with \u2018Kumbukkan Oya\u2019, \u2018Yaan Oya\u2019, \u2018Heda Oya\u2019, \u2018North Central Main canal\u2019 and \u2018Gin\u2019 and \u2018Nilwala\u2019. These projects had been regularly listed in the Annual reports of the Ministry of Finance and Planning in these years.<\/p>\n

As I observe from page 247 of the Annual Report of the Ministry of Finance and Planning for 2010 \u2018Kalu Ganga\u2019 development project had received USD 46 million from the Saudi Fund during 2010. According to the description of this project outline at page 272 of the same Annual report, the project was scheduled to be completed by 2014.\u00a0 On page 265 of the Annual report of 2012 of the Ministry of Finance and Planning, it has been stated that government secured finance from China Development Bank (CDB) to implement \u2018Moragahakanda\u2019 development project in 2012. This project comprises construction of main dam, saddle dam, spillway, intake structure to power house, and power transmission line as stated in the same Annual report. Thus, it is clear that the project had started as early as 2007, funding had been secured from external sources, foreign loan agreements had been executed, contractors had been engaged and budgetary provision had been regularly made for successful conclusion of these projects. In fact, I am of the view that if not for the change of government in January 2015, Moragahakanda-Kalu Ganga multipurpose irrigation project could have been commissioned in 2016 and downstream work could now be in progress.<\/p>\n

I am also aware that my former colleague, the Honourable Nimal Siripala de Silva, then Minister of Irrigation, was constantly updating the Cabinet and in Parliament debates regarding the progress of implementation of these various irrigation projects Islandwide. \u2018\u2018Moragahakanda-Kalu Ganga\u2019 multipurpose project received considerable attention in view of its multifaceted benefits to the Northern and Eastern areas of Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

It is in this background that I am bewildered by the remarks that His Excellency the President made regarding this important project, giving the impression that nothing has happened since 2006 under the previous government. This appears grossly misleading and factually incorrect. It is well accepted that this kind of complex project could take a much longer time to implement. Since the suspension of this project under the UNP government in the mid-1980\u2019s and during the entire period of the Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga Presidency, there was no initiative to start this project. This project could not have been a reality today if the previous government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa had not initiated project implementation as soon as he assumed the Presidency in 2005 and gave priority to infrastructure development in this country despite the war which ended in 2009.<\/p>\n

In these circumstances I request the External Resources Department to clarify \u00a0the factual position regarding external resource mobilization initiatives with respect to this project (including details of loan requests made by ERD and budgetary provisions made) in terms of the provisions of the Right to information Act. I am entitled to know the true position on this initiative to which I myself as a member of the previous Cabinet had contributed.<\/p>\n

Yours faithfully,<\/p>\n

Prof. G. L. Peiris,<\/p>\n

Chairman,<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna<\/p>\n

Former Minister of External Affairs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor G.L. Peiris \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Kirula Place, Off Kirula Road\u00a0Colombo 05 31.07.2018 \u00a0 REGISTERED POST The Director General, Department of External Resources, Secretariat Building, Colombo 01 Dear Sir, Factual Information Regarding \u2018Moragahakanda Kalu Ganga\u2019 Multipurpose Development Project I wish to invite your attention to the remarks made by His Excellency President Maithripala Sirisena at the \u2018Moragahakanda Kalu […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79780","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=79780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}