SLPA fails to fulfill financial obligations to the Consolidated Fund

Non-compliance with the Finance Act In pursuance of Section 10 (5) of the Finance Act No. 38 of 1971 is a violation of its obligation to credit the balance money of the surplus of net profit to the treasury fund.

If there is a surplus in a public corporation for a certain year, the balance should be credited to the Consolidated Fund after making deductions specified in the Act.

Nevertheless, out of the total net profit of Rs. 30,253 million received by the SLPA from 2016 to 2019, only Rs. 600 million had been credited to the Consolidated Fund.

Further, the above profit included a total rent of Rs. 8,514 million relevant to the period from 2016 to 2019 received from the two companies engaged in the operations at South Asian Gateway Terminal (SAGT) and the Colombo International Container Terminal (CICT).

The two terminals were given on long-term lease basis to the private sector and Rs. 11,250 million collected as royalty for that period.

It was further revealed that the above revenue was not the direct operating revenue of the port.

According to the information received from the Deputy General Manager (Premises) Letter No. 1/1/156 dated 13 July 2020, the Authority had leased 236 acres, 32.74 Perches and 375.44 square meters of land without obtaining an assessed value from the Department of Valuation as at 31 December 2019.

The Colombo International Container Terminal (C.I.C.T) is the only container terminal currently operating at the Colombo Port that can handle ships over 14.25 meter in depth (Dratf).

The capacity thereof is 2.4 million of twenty equivalent units per year. A number of 374 ships with a draft of more than 14.25 meters had arrived at the terminal and a total of more than 2.6 million container units had been handled in 2019.

It was observed that the maximum capacity was also exceeded. Accordingly, the container handling of the terminal had increased by 8 per cent compared to 2018.