A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Friday, August 11, 2017
Unseemly dispute over the Medamulana D. A. Rajapaksa memorial
Memorial
By C. A .Chandraprema-August 10, 2017, 12:00 pm
About
a year before the Rajapaksa government was ousted from power, moves
were made to build a memorial at the location where the late D. A.
Rajapaksa was interred in Medamulana. The spot stands not far away from
the home he lived in, which is now occupied by the eldest in the family,
parliamentarian and former Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa. On 26 February
2014, a decision was taken at the Board meeting of the Sri Lanka Land
Reclamation and Development Corporation (SLLRDC) giving covering
sanction for the release of Rs. 10 million as an advance payment to
begin the work on the memorial. The board also approved the release of
the balance installments as and when requested with the total estimate
being Rs. 33.9 million. It was also specifically stated in the minutes
of this board meeting that the funds for this project will be received
from various sources, and that collection of the same would be done by a
committee.
Earlier on 27 January 2014, the Director General Civil Engineering of
the Navy had written to the SLLRDC giving the total estimate for the
civil works of the monument as Rs. 33.9 million according to the design
that had been provided to them. They had also asked for an advance of
Rs. 10 million to begin the work. The memorial was opened on 6 November
2014, but had not been formally handed over by the Navy to the D. A.
Rajapaksa Foundation, due to a leak in the ornamental pond which
resulted in water seeping into the exhibition area of the memorial which
had to be attended to. In the meantime, the government changed. On 4
August 2015, the Rajapaksa Foundation wrote to the General Manager of
the SLLRDC requesting that the memorial be handed over to the Foundation
along with the final bill for reimbursement.
On 21 August 2015, the General Manager of the SLLRDC wrote back to the
Rajapaksa Foundation stating that they were in the process of preparing
the final bill which will be sent to them shortly, and asking for an
advance payment of Rs. 25 million. On 31 August 2015, The Rajapaksa
Foundation notified the GM of the SLLRDC that Rs. 25 million had been
paid into the bank account of the SLLRDC and once again requested that
the completed project be handed over to the Foundation. Shortly
thereafter, the GM of the SLLRDC wrote to the Rajapaksa Foundation
enclosing the final bill for a whopping Rs. 81 million - well over twice
the originally estimated cost. This letter was dated 28 August 2015,
but was obviously sent after the advance payment of Rs. 25 million had
already been paid to the SLLRDC by the Rajapaksa Foundation.
The Rajapaksa Foundation wrote back to the GM of the SLLRDC on 14
September 2015 reminding them that the SLLRDC had (just an year earlier
in 2014) conveyed to them that the total cost of the memorial would be
Rs. 27 million (which becomes Rs.33.9 million with the addition of the
contingencies fund and government taxes.) The Rajapaksa Foundation has
asked for a detailed final bill and final BOQ in order to ascertain the
actual cost incurred on this project. Where things have ended up now is
that the SLLRDC has sent a letter of demand through the legal firm of
Jayaratne Associates to Chamal Rajapaksa the Chairman of the D. A.
Rajapaksa Foundation with copies to the other board members of the
Foundation, asking for the remaining Rs. 56 million (Rs.81 million minus
the Rs. 25 million already paid).
We learn that the final bill had ballooned to an estimate of Rs. 81
million is because the construction of the D. A. Rajapaksa memorial had
been lumped together with some other minor projects being carried out by
the LLRDC in that area including the building of a police station and
referred to collectively the ‘Weeraketiya Project’. The costs of the
other projects too had been included under the D. A. Rajapaksa memorial
project and charged to the Foundation. There may have been some genuine
overlap such as when people or material is transported to be distributed
to all the Weeraketiya projects. But whether such costs should be
charged on the Foundation is questionable.
Even though the memorial is not government property as such, it’s a
public monument to an important leader in the South. No private person
can make any personal use of this memorial and it is for all practical
purposes a public property. Its cost was met with private donations from
many sources. For example the stone ‘punkalas’ that can be seen in the
picture were donated by two parties – the labour to carve them out was
donated by a skilled stone mason and the material for him to work on by a
private company. The glass structures that one sees in the photo were
fabricated and installed under the sponsorship of yet another private
company.
The glass panels inside the monument were all donated by a well known
glass company. The air conditioner in the display room was donated by a
company that sells air conditioners. The wax figures too were donated by
an artiste donating his labour with a private company providing him
with the material. Other donations were in monetary terms to reimburse
the cost of building the memorial. All the present complications could
have been avoided if the D. A. Rajapaksa Foundation had asked any one of
the large construction companies in this country to build this memorial
– they would have done the entire project free and then there would
have been no excessive estimates or letters of demand to contend with.
That however is never the best way to proceed in matters like this to
which many people would like to contribute, and make their contribution
known. A memorial Foundation seeks to keep alive in the memories of the
living, people who once bestrode the scene as colossi and that can only
be achieved by getting as many people as possible to participate.
The best way for the government to resolve this dispute may be to get
valuations of all other works done in the Weeraketiya-Medamulana area
during the relevant period by the SLLRDC and to apportion costs
according to a reasonable formula. We learn that a valuation of the
memorial was in fact carried out in January 2017 and it has been valued
at the cost of building it – the same Rs. 33.9 million that it was
originally estimated to cost - which stands to reason because this is
not a property which has any commercial or residential value. The
Rajapaksa Foundation had since paid a further Rs.9 million thus meeting
the full cost of the project as originally estimated.
The most important thing to note is that a project that was estimated to
cost Rs.33.9 million in 2014, can’t possibly increase to Rs. 81 million
by 2015 especially when all the work had been completed by November
2014 and all that needed to be done in 2015 were just some repairs to
one malfunctioning feature. The cost of the project could have increased
only if the design and structure had been changed after construction
had begun. But there was no such change in the design either. So,
clearly, there has been some lumping together of other work done by the
SLLRDC in the Weeraketiya area with that of the D. A. Rajapaksa
memorial. Harshana de Silva the then Chairman of the SLLRDC told the
present writer that when the civil works of the memorial was nearing
completion, one of his senior officers had informed him that they were
coming close to the estimated cost. De Silva had thereupon instructed
the officer to obtain any further money needed from private contributors
without overshooting the budget for the project.
De Silva says that until the moment he relinquished his position as
Chairman of the SLLRDC in January 2015, he is certain that the budget of
Rs. 33.9 million was never exceeded because if it had been, he would
definitely have been informed about it. He says that the complication
has arisen because of the lumping together of all work done in the
Weeraketiya area during that period under the common rubric of
‘Weeraketiya project’ instead of accounting for the costs of each
project separately. Be that as it may, this must be the first time ever,
that a government agency is having a dispute with a statutory
charitable foundation over the cost of a memorial for a political
colossus of the past.
The irony of it is that when it comes to memorials for other political
notables for the past, it is the government that has to provide the land
on which it stands and it’s often in a prime urban location. In this
case however, the government has not had to provide anything - neither
the cost of building the memorial nor the land on which its stands
because it was built in the actual spot where D.A.Rajapaksa was
interred. The government’s role had been in the implementation of the
project through the SLLRDC and its construction by the Navy with the
cost being borne by private contributors. Yet there is a dispute with
regard to exactly how much has to be paid to the SLLRDC. Even a layman
unfamiliar with construction matters will however find it hard to
believe that a building estimate could change from Rs. 33.9 million in
2014 to Rs.81 million in 2015 without any change in the design or
proportions of the building especially when it had been completed by
November 2014 with only minor corrections left for 2015.