​Witnesses Will Be Protected —  Eran Wickramaratne

Wednesday, April 08, 2015

There have been many issues pertaining to the contracts that were awarded by the previous regime that has come under scrutiny of the current government. Among these projects are the Chinese projects and there have been many opinions expressed in this regard. The government too has come under severe criticism for their indecision regarding these projects with various ministers expressing various differing statements regarding these projects, and the Chinese contractors expressing contrary statements. Speaking to The Sunday Leader, Deputy Minister of Highways Eran Wickramaratne expressed his views on the investment and road development projects. He also said that in the name of development of the country, a large amount of money was used fraudulently to construct roads and expressways. He charged that commissions were given and some contracts were also given to family and friends without following any proper tender procedure. Wickramaratne also outlined the progress made by the government in its 100 day program pledge to the people.

Following are excerpts of the interview: 

By Camelia Nathaniel

Q:  with the 100 days almost up what has the government achieved so far?

A:  What we promised in the 100 day program can be divided into two broad groups. One is good governance related issues and the other is economy related issues. On the good governance related issue we promised in 100 days to create a legal frame work. One is we brought in the witness protection act and no one needs to worry anymore about giving evidence in any case. In the past people did not want to get involved in reporting any crime, as they were afraid that they would be identified and then would have to face numerous problems. However with the bill being brought in these witnesses need not be at the receiving end. Hence anyone who comes forward to give evidence will be protected in the future and any pressure on them will not be there as they will have legal protection by the law.

Q:  Wasn’t it the former government that initiated the drugs bill?

A:  Yes it was and we brought in a couple of acts that the former government had initiated, like the drugs bill. It was their bill and it required a 2/3rd majority in parliament while Maithripala Sirisena was the minister of health, but they still failed to pass it in parliament. So I will leave it up to you to speculate why. However we brought this act to parliament and polished it up and got it passed.

Then there was another act regarding the sales of tobacco and the percentage of cover it could have on the wrapper etc. Again it was blocked by the previous regime, but we got it passed.

Q:  Much was said regarding the right to information bill, but so far nothing has been done, why?

A: We have presented to parliament the right to information act as well. This we spoke of while in the opposition and now that we are in government we have presented it to parliament and within the next few weeks it will be passed. We have also drafted another act because there is so much corruption in this country, and there has been corruption on a large scale, the audit processes must be strengthened and the audit process must be made independent from the executive arm of government. That is the present not the ministers cannot interfere and it must be reported to parliament. According to the constitution the parliament is supreme on matters of finance. So we are bringing in a new audit act and within the 100 days we are expecting to have that passed too.

Then during our campaigning we said that for good governance there should be separation of powers between the president, the executive and the judiciary. The first thing we did as we came in was to clean up the judiciary. We put basically the most senior judge on the bench to the helm of the judiciary and we established the principles in the judiciary and the legal profession the principally seniority, in management the principally seniority.

Q: There are various speculations regarding the separation of powers and the abolition of executive presidential powers, lately. Can you explain exactly what the government’s plan is regarding this?

A:  In terms of the separation of powers, our view was to abolish the executive presidency, but other parties have not agreed on that, therefore we have proposed the 19th amendment and we called a session of parliament last Tuesday, but for this we need a 2/3 majority in parliament, because this is a constitutional amendment and this is not an ordinary law.

Therefore we have spoken with the other parties and presented the 19thamendment. The main features of the 19th amendment are that it limits the terms a president can serve to two terms. It has also reduced the duration of the period that a president can serve from 6 years to 5 years. It has also reduced the immunity of the president and the discretion of the president where in the past he could dissolve parliament after one year, but now with this bill he cannot do that anymore, and he has to wait 4 ½ years before he dissolves parliament.  Those are some of the changes that have been made.

Q:  With regard to the road development, your government claims to have detected many flaws in the tender procedures and thus have stalled several of these projects. Can you explain why and the current progress on these projects?

A:  On the southern highway they had employed a consultancy firm and they were paying that consultancy more than Rs. 120 million per kilometre. This is one of the revelations. There are so many professionals in this country like engineers, consultants etc who could have been employed in these projects but they had all been sidelined. Then we are not paying our public servants adequately etc and under these circumstances, it is a crime to spend so much on this firm for the construction of this highway.

Further on the road from Kegalle on the kandy road, there is a bypass of about 4 kilometres. That has been built at over Rs. 700 million a km. However in spite of this colossal expenditure, still there are problems in this project. There are land slips and numerous issues facing this road.

The issue is that these projects are all done without following proper tender procedures and any competitive bidding. These projects have been just given to these firms. The previous regime had also told some contractors to fund themselves privately through the banks. They had done so and NSB had released nearly Rs. 28 billion for this purpose. However the payments on these loans are not being paid and although there has been a government guarantee the cash has been going out and the due process has not been followed on some of this process that has led to many questions that have been un-answered. There are two issues in these projects one being the price escalation and the other is over design. The over design will increase the cost of the road and then they take a percentage of that. So that is what was happening where they were putting the cost higher because they were getting a percentage as kickbacks.

Then in the Northern highway project, you are basically going out of Colombo that had ten parts to it. Of this 2nd 4th 5th and 6th parts were given to local contractors without any bidding process. Each segment was between Rs. 40 – 50 billion for the project. However the first segment was not given and anyone knows that the first segment is the busiest segment going out of the capital city anywhere in the world and coming into the capital city, to ease the traffic and also to address the environmental issues.

Then to join that road the specialist had said that the exit should be from Kadawatha, but apparently Basil Rajapaksa is alleged to have moved that to Enderamulla. That is very suspicious given the fact that he is the Gampaha district MP. They did not follow the trace that was suggested by the specialist.