Colombo ETC Embers Glowing; Bureaucratic Incompetence?

By Rusiripala Tennakoon –JANUARY 18, 2021

Rusiripala Tennakoon

Crucial infrastructure projects remain in the focus of many sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) and financial conglomerates. Dubai Ports World has a $ 3 billion looking for investment across Indian Ocean logistics sector. UAE Investment companies have signed up with China Development Bank for a $ 10 Billion joint venture. A ‘tech town’ is in the offing near the UAE port of Jebel-Ali with an investment of $ 600 million from Alibaba to develop mobile apps and Robotics. Oman’s new port Duqm has turned into an Industrial park involved in shipbuilding and auto assembly. Hambantota port in Sri Lanka is being baptized as the maritime hub of China’s Belt and Road initiative. This is just a little of the global scenario relevant to the issue at hand.

The active presence of China in this region and particularly in SL has exposed us to a high alert of the powers that be. Although Sri Lanka first approached India with the request to develop the Hambantota port it’s dilly dallying paved the way for the alternatives. Now India is exploring ways and means to monitor and find ways to wiretap China, offering to upgrade the Hambantota Airport and soliciting indirect participation in getting involved in the development of Colombo’s newest Container Terminal and its operations. The current dilemma we are facing is associated with this setup.

With the tremendous increase the world is experiencing in the demand for trading across seas, ports have become the pivotal role players serving not only the vital economic functions but also becoming hot trouble spots in world politics in addition to bringing a variety of benefits to the economy of the countries. World has seen this role-play from pre-historic periods. Between the 14th and 16th centuries economic activities of South East Asia was centered on spice trade. European nations were trying to establish their dominance in the Indian ocean. They searched for a passage round Africa and Atlantic to gain quick access to spice rich lands in the eastern part of Asia. The Portuguese mariner Bertolameu Dias discovered the cape of Good Hope route in 1488 and Vasco da Gama reached India through the same route in 1498.

History also shows us how the various rulers in the spice producing countries have entered into corrupt deals with the European buyers from time to time offering them monopolies in the trade on agreements reached in their own personal interests virtually surrendering the rights of the inhabitants and delivering them as forced labor to the European invaders. The swelling of the European presence in the region under various entities such as Dutch East India Company and English East India Company bear ample evidence to this fact. These intrusions soon culminated into physical invasions massacring almost the entire populations in the spice growing island nations leaving only a few alive and that too for the benefit of the trespassers just to get them information on how to grow and produce mace, nutmeg and cloves. History is full of examples where unscrupulous rulers have surrendered the sovereignty of the countries they ruled wholesale for their personal gains. Seeing through these horrible events in the history people always desire to safe guard the national interests when it comes to any sort of intervention by foreign elements in the economic affairs of a country. This is where the leadership qualities have to be  displayed truly for the liking of the masses.

The prime Minister of Singapore delivers a national day address to the nation on every 9th of August, their national day. The national day address of the PM is awaited by the whole world because he spells out policies and plans that become important to several sectors in a global sense. Several years ago in one of these speeches the Singapore PM pronounced that the business income from the Changi Airport is expected to decline due to the world aircraft industry contemplating the  manufacture of long haul aircrafts that can travel direct from Melbourne to New York non-stop. He said that Singapore’s GDP will be affected as a result and to compensate it they are going to develop the Singapore harbor by increasing its cargo handling and the efficiency to supplement the loss revenue from the Air port.

This statement teaches us two lessons. The first is how the national leaders are knowledgeable and acting with foresight to meet the future contingencies. The second is how important the port operations of a country are when it becomes necessary to augment the national income. As for us we are very fortunate as a nation that we have the best chosen in the cabinet who can mastermind the augmentation of national income from vulnerable and strategic sources with experience and  knowledge based rhetorics. 

Be that as it may, our port issue is hanging fire from the last regime days. This provides a good escape route for the various parties to play political ‘ping-pong’ while the masses watch with interest. Somewhere around may 2019 we heard that the MS-RW government decided to enter into a MOU with Japan and India (on a tripartite basis) to develop the ETC with a loan facility of $500 million and the construction to be undertaken by India. We were also informed that the loan was on very attractive low interest rates with long grace periods. But the proposal met with lot of public criticism alleging that the SLPA was in a position to undertake the development work and opposed the envisaged transfer of terminal operation rights to a newly established company jointly owned by Sri Lanka, Japan and India. However as usual the problem was the lack of transparency of the proposal for public perusal and evaluation. It appears that this is an area that remains well guarded and protected under all successive governments! The sovereignty of the people enshrined in the constitution stands subjugated to that extent.

The current situation has arisen due to the Government that came into power offering 49% of the ownership of the shares to an Indian Company. According to Govt. spokesmen it is neither a lease nor a transfer of ownership. But it is an indefinitely on going share ownership in a vital operation of the country associated with one of its prime locations crucially important as an asset in the strategic sector. The government has to pay heed to this public claim in the context of their election promises and declared policy stands. What is significant is the country has a right to know what exactly is the proposal instead of bits and pieces uttered here and there. No body should fear to divulge the truth. After all if the current proposal is more beneficial (to the country!) in the long run, there should not be any qualms about the matter.

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