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Convener of the Sathya Gaveshakayo (Truth Seekers) organization, Attorney-at-Law Premnath Dolawatte says that he cannot condone the shooting and killing of suspected members of underworld gangs in custody of the Sri Lanka Police. 

Speaking at a press conference in Colombo yesterday (26) regarding the recent gunning down of a underworld figure who was in police custody, he accused the police of extrajudicial killings when suspects are escorted to obtain information regarding hidden explosives and firearms.    

He stated that no one has the right to take the law into their own hands and that the police has no right to take decisions regarding people. 

“Hitler’s reign is in this government. People are being killed using the police,” he charged. 

Source: Ada Derana

Some in the Airline industry is requesting that the ongoing Presidential commission inquiring into Srilankan Airline's alleged misappropriation or financial irregularities should consider screening the parties who are voluntarily providing information or in the alternative should clearly verify the allegations against the perpetrators, before releasing to the media,
According to them Marlon Ferreira, a former employee at Phoenix Duty-Free Services Lanka Private Ltd has been on a personal vendetta against former employer Phoenix ,  who had they say accepted his resignation instead of sacking him, when they were informed of  two cases of financial  Fraud filed against Ferreira  by HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank in Colombo .  They pointed out that most companies in Sri Lanka give the option to the party to submit and accept their resignation so as not to spoil the prospects of future employment elsewhere. 

They say the Presidential commission has recorded his statements where he has made totally baseless, and damaging allegations against his former employers, filled with malicious lies and untruths. 

At the commission, Ferreira had claimed that he found certain anomalies in the contract between Sri Lankan and Phoenix which he went on to note as he kept track of the in-flight duty-free sales there was an issue about the revenue and expenses of the company.

He said from the date acquired, Phoenix Duty-Free Services Lanka Private Ltd would make annual sales of 5.54 Million US Dollars, however, when taking in to account the expenses of the company and the dues that should be given to SriLankan Airlines as commission, the company would incur a loss of 1.2 Million US Dollars. He believed something was happening behind the scenes as the Managing Director Raju Chandiram and Finance Manager Mohamed Hamza kept financial statements a secret.

Elaborating this further he had gone on to say that the senior management of SriLankan Airlines Comprising CEO Kapila Chandrasena and Head of Commercial G.T.Jayaseelan also wrote off 37% of the guaranteed commissions Phoenix Duty-Free Services had to pay SriLankan Airlines when both parties secretly amended the existing contract to favour Phoenix Duty-Free Services.

The Board of Directors at that time need to be held accountable for the millions of dollars SriLankan Airlines subsequently were deprived of during the entire five-year contractual period.

The witness also said that there appears to be sufficient evidence that the country’s Customs Ordinance Act and the contracts signed between the SriLankan Airlines and the suppliers of duty-free goods had been violated by Phoenix Duty-Free Services.

Phoenix Duty-Free Services who signed its initial contract with SriLankan Airlines on the 25th of January 2012 under the name of Phoenix Rising Ventures who operated out of Canada, currently still operates out of Colombo Sri Lanka conducting other businesses.

However, they have now renamed their business as ‘Duty-Free Partners’ and operates out of their existing office at Park Street Colombo 2.

It has now come to light, SriLankan Airlines never knew of Phoenix Rising Ventures until they put forward a bid to enter the airlines Duty-Free Program.

Marlon Ferreira, testifying before the commission said before the company was awarded the contract, Sri Lankan Airlines had an exclusive supplier for all Duty-Free Products. Romeo Ferdinands the In-Flight Services Manager at SriLankan Airlines who also testified said they never heard of Phoenix Rising Ventures until they came forward to bid to supply perfumes and cosmetics for the Duty-Free Program.

In 2012, Phoenix Duty-Free Services Lanka Ltd was given the contract to supply perfumes and cosmetics, but Marlon Ferreira believed the contract was awarded without following tender procedure. Romeo Ferdinands testified to this matter in the affirmative noting the contract was to be given for 06 months and then reviewed in the fourth month to ascertain if the contract can be given for three years.

Marlon Ferreira went on to testify, Phoenix Duty-Free Services Lanka Ltd was then awarded the contract to provide liquor for in-flight consumption and that too was done without following proper tender procedure. Finally, the contract for the entire duty-free program had been awarded to Phoenix Duty-Free Services Lanka Ltd for 2012 to 2017 without following the proper tender process.

The witness Marlon Ferreira believed, the deal for the contract was brokered by Former SriLankan Airlines Board Director Sanath Ukwatte by negotiating it with the then Chairman Nishantha Wickremesinghe and CEO Kapila Chandrasena.
With regard to the contract, Managing Director of Phoenix Duty-Free Services Lanka Ltd Raju Chandiram had signed the document as a witness while an individual knows as Rumesh Dilan Wirasinghe the CEO of Phoenix Duty-Free Services had also signed the document.

Rumesh Dilan Weerasinghe the CEO of Phoenix Duty-Free Services was named in the offshore leaks database released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists several years ago.

Marlon Ferreira testified when he had questioned Raju Chandiram over certain losses made by Phoenix Duty-Free Services Lanka Ltd in its services, the latter had stated: ” We must make losses here, to make profits elsewhere”.

He also testified that Phoenix Duty-Free Services Lanka Ltd had breached the contract by allegedly engaging in trading, an act which is not acceptable internationally and can have the airline sued by suppliers.

By Maria Abi-Habib 

HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka — Every time Sri Lanka’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, turned to his Chinese allies for loans and assistance with an ambitious port project, the answer was yes.

Yes, though feasibility studies said the port wouldn’t work. Yes, though other frequent lenders like India had refused. Yes, though Sri Lanka’s debt was ballooning rapidly under Mr. Rajapaksa.

Over years of construction and renegotiation with China Harbor Engineering Company, one of Beijing’s largest state-owned enterprises, the Hambantota Port Development Project distinguished itself mostly by failing, as predicted. With tens of thousands of ships passing by along one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, the port drew only 34 ships in 2012.
And then the port became China’s.

Mr. Rajapaksa was voted out of office in 2015, but Sri Lanka’s new government struggled to make payments on the debt he had taken on. Under heavy pressure and after months of negotiations with the Chinese, the government handed over the port and 15,000 acres of land around it for 99 years in December.

The transfer gave China control of territory just a few hundred miles off the shores of a rival, India, and a strategic foothold along a critical commercial and military waterway.

China-Backed Ports

China has helped finance at least 35 ports around the world in the past decade, according to a Times analysis of construction projects.

Note: China provided only partial financing for some ports. | Sources: Construction Intelligence Center; Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies; Center for Strategic and International Studies; New York Times reporting.

The case is one of the most vivid examples of China’s ambitious use of loans and aid to gain influence around the world — and of its willingness to play hardball to collect.

The debt deal also intensified some of the harshest accusations about President Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative: that the global investment and lending program amounts to a debt trap for vulnerable countries around the world, fueling corruption and autocratic behavior in struggling democracies.

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka, center, holding court at a wedding in Colombo in June. Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times.

Months of interviews with Sri Lankan, Indian, Chinese and Western officials and analysis of documents and agreements stemming from the port project present a stark illustration of how China and the companies under its control ensured their interests in a small country hungry for financing.

• During the 2015 Sri Lankan elections, large payments from the Chinese port construction fund flowed directly to campaign aides and activities for Mr. Rajapaksa, who had agreed to Chinese terms at every turn and was seen as an important ally in China’s efforts to tilt influence away from India in South Asia. The payments were confirmed by documents and cash checks detailed in a government investigation seen by The New York Times.

• Though Chinese officials and analysts have insisted that China’s interest in the Hambantota port is purely commercial, Sri Lankan officials said that from the start, the intelligence and strategic possibilities of the port’s location were part of the negotiations.

• Initially moderate terms for lending on the port project became more onerous as Sri Lankan officials asked to renegotiate the timeline and add more financing. And as Sri Lankan officials became desperate to get the debt off their books in recent years, the Chinese demands centered on handing over equity in the port rather than allowing any easing of terms.

• Though the deal erased roughly $1 billion in debt for the port project, Sri Lanka is now in more debt to China than ever, as other loans have continued and rates remain much higher than from other international lenders.

Mr. Rajapaksa and his aides did not respond to multiple requests for comment, made over several months, for this article. Officials for China Harbor also would not comment.

Estimates by the Sri Lankan Finance Ministry paint a bleak picture: This year, the government is expected to generate $14.8 billion in revenue, but its scheduled debt repayments, to an array of lenders around the world, come to $12.3 billion.

“John Adams said infamously that a way to subjugate a country is through either the sword or debt. China has chosen the latter,” said Brahma Chellaney, an analyst who often advises the Indian government and is affiliated with the Center for Policy Research, a think tank in New Delhi.

Indian officials, in particular, fear that Sri Lanka is struggling so much that the Chinese government may be able to dangle debt relief in exchange for its military’s use of assets like the Hambantota port — though the final lease agreement forbids military activity there without Sri Lanka’s invitation.

“The only way to justify the investment in Hambantota is from a national security standpoint — that they will bring the People’s Liberation Army in,” said Shivshankar Menon, who served as India’s foreign secretary and then its national security adviser as the Hambantota port was being built.

The Hambantota Port gets only a small percentage of Sri Lanka’s port business, overshadowed by the main complex in the capital.CreditAdam Dean for The New York Times An Engaged AllyThe relationship between China and Sri Lanka had long been amicable, with Sri Lanka an early recognizer of Mao’s Communist government after the Chinese Revolution. But it was during a more recent conflict — Sri Lanka’s brutal 26-year civil war with ethnic Tamil separatists — that China became indispensable.

Mr. Rajapaksa, who was elected in 2005, presided over the last years of the war, when Sri Lanka became increasingly isolated by accusations of human rights abuses. Under him, Sri Lanka relied heavily on China for economic support, military equipment and political cover at the United Nations to block potential sanctions.

The war ended in 2009, and as the country emerged from the chaos, Mr. Rajapaksa and his family consolidated their hold. At the height of Mr. Rajapaksa’s tenure, the president and his three brothers controlled many government ministries and around 80 percent of total government spending. Governments like China negotiated directly with them.

So when the president began calling for a vast new port development project at Hambantota, his sleepy home district, the few roadblocks in its way proved ineffective.

From the start, officials questioned the wisdom of a second major port, in a country a quarter the size of Britain and with a population of 22 million, when the main port in the capital was thriving and had room to expand. Feasibility studies commissioned by the government had starkly concluded that a port at Hambantota was not economically viable.

“They approached us for the port at the beginning, and Indian companies said no,” said Mr. Menon, the former Indian foreign secretary. “It was an economic dud then, and it’s an economic dud now.”

But Mr. Rajapaksa greenlighted the project, then boasted in a news release that he had defied all caution — and that China was on board.

The Sri Lanka Ports Authority began devising what officials believed was a careful, economically sound plan in 2007, according to an official involved in the project. It called for a limited opening for business in 2010, and for revenue to be coming in before any major expansion.

The first major loan it took on the project came from the Chinese government’s Export-Import Bank, or Exim, for $307 million. But to obtain the loan, Sri Lanka was required to accept Beijing’s preferred company, China Harbor, as the port’s builder, according to a United States Embassy cable from the time, leaked to WikiLeaks.

That is a typical demand of China for its projects around the world, rather than allowing an open bidding process. Across the region, Beijing’s government is lending out billions of dollars, being repaid at a premium to hire Chinese companies and thousands of Chinese workers, according to officials across the region.

There were other strings attached to the loan, as well, in a sign that China saw strategic value in the Hambantota port from the beginning.

Nihal Rodrigo, a former Sri Lankan foreign secretary and ambassador to China, said that discussions with Chinese officials at the time made it clear that intelligence sharing was an integral, if not public, part of the deal. In an interview with The Times, Mr. Rodrigo characterized the Chinese line as, “We expect you to let us know who is coming and stopping here.”

In later years, Chinese officials and the China Harbor company went to great lengths to keep relations strong with Mr. Rajapaksa, who for years had faithfully acquiesced to such terms.

In the final months of Sri Lanka’s 2015 election, China’s ambassador broke with diplomatic norms and lobbied voters, even caddies at Colombo’s premier golf course, to support Mr. Rajapaksa over the opposition, which was threatening to tear up economic agreements with the Chinese government.

As the January election inched closer, large payments started to flow toward the president’s circle.

At least $7.6 million was dispensed from China Harbor’s account at Standard Chartered Bank to affiliates of Mr. Rajapaksa’s campaign, according to a document, seen by The Times, from an active internal government investigation. The document details China Harbor’s bank account number — ownership of which was verified — and intelligence gleaned from questioning of the people to whom the checks were made out.

With 10 days to go before polls opened, around $3.7 million was distributed in checks: $678,000 to print campaign T-shirts and other promotional material and $297,000 to buy supporters gifts, including women’s saris. Another $38,000 was paid to a popular Buddhist monk who was supporting Mr. Rajapaksa’s electoral bid, while two checks totaling $1.7 million were delivered by volunteers to Temple Trees, his official residence.

Most of the payments were from a subaccount controlled by China Harbor, named “HPDP Phase 2,” shorthand for Hambantota Port Development Project.

An expressway extension to Hambantota Port. Chinese analysts have not given up the view that the port could become profitable. CreditAdam Dean for The New York Times

China’s NetworkAfter nearly five years of helter-skelter expansion for China’s Belt and Road Initiative across the globe, Chinese officials are quietly trying to take stock of how many deals have been done and what the country’s financial exposure might be. There is no comprehensive picture of that yet, said one Chinese economic policymaker, who like many other officials would speak about Chinese policy only on the condition of anonymity.

Some Chinese officials have become concerned that the nearly institutional graft surrounding such projects represents a liability for China, and raises the bar needed for profitability. President Xi acknowledged the worry in a speech last year, saying, “We will also strengthen international cooperation on anticorruption in order to build the Belt and Road Initiative with integrity.”

In Bangladesh, for example, officials said in January that China Harbor would be banned from future contracts over accusations that the company attempted to bribe an official at the ministry of roads, stuffing $100,000 into a box of tea, government officials said in interviews. And China Harbor’s parent company, China Communications Construction Company, was banned for eight years in 2009 from bidding on World Bank projects because of corrupt practices in the Philippines.
Since the port seizure in Sri Lanka, Chinese officials have started suggesting that Belt and Road is not an open-ended government commitment to finance development across three continents.

“If we cannot manage the risk well, the Belt and Road projects cannot go far or well,” said Jin Qi, the chairwoman of the Silk Road Fund, a large state-owned investment fund, during the China Development Forum in late March.

In Sri Lanka’s case, port officials and Chinese analysts have also not given up the view that the Hambantota port could become profitable, or at least strengthen China’s trade capacity in the region.

Ray Ren, China Merchant Port’s representative in Sri Lanka and the head of the Hambantota port’s operations, insisted that “the location of Sri Lanka is ideal for international trade.” And he dismissed the negative feasibility studies, saying they were done many years ago when Hambantota was “a small fishing hamlet.”

Hu Shisheng, the director of South Asia studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said that China clearly recognized the strategic value of the Hambantota port. But he added: “Once China wants to exert its geostrategic value, the strategic value of the port will be gone. Big countries cannot fight in Sri Lanka — it would be wiped out.”

Although the Hambantota port first opened in a limited way in 2010, before the Belt and Road Initiative was announced, the Chinese government quickly folded the project into the global program.

Shortly after the handover ceremony in Hambantota, China’s state news agency released a boastful video on Twitter, proclaiming the deal “another milestone along the path of #BeltandRoad.”


The Mahinda Rajapaksa International Cricket Stadium in Hambantota. The stadium has more seats than the population of the area’s main town.CreditAdam Dean for The New York Times 


Pilgrim monks visiting the largely empty Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, just 150 miles southeast from the country’s main airport.CreditAdam Dean for The New York Times

A Port to NowhereThe seaport is not the only grand project built with Chinese loans in Hambantota, a sparsely populated area on Sri Lanka’s southeastern coast that is still largely overrun by jungle.

A cricket stadium with more seats than the population of Hambantota’s district capital marks the skyline, as does a large international airport — which in June lost the only daily commercial flight it had left when FlyDubai airline ended the route. A highway that cuts through the district is traversed by elephants and used by farmers to rake out and dry the rice plucked fresh from their paddies.

Mr. Rajapaksa’s advisers had laid out a methodical approach to how the port might expand after opening, ensuring that some revenue would be coming in before taking on much more debt.

But in 2009, the president had grown impatient. His 65th birthday was approaching the following year, and to mark the occasion he wanted a grand opening at the Hambantota port — including the beginning of an ambitious expansion 10 years ahead of the Port Authority’s original timeline.

Chinese laborers began working day and night to get the port ready, officials said. But when workers dredged the land and then flooded it to create the basin of the port, they had not taken into account a large boulder that partly blocked the entrance, preventing the entry of large ships, like oil tankers, that the port’s business model relied on.

Ports Authority officials, unwilling to cross the president, quickly moved ahead anyway. The Hambantota port opened in an elaborate celebration on Nov. 18, 2010, Mr. Rajapaksa’s birthday. Then it sat waiting for business while the rock blocked it.
China Harbor blasted the boulder a year later, at a cost of $40 million, an exorbitant price that raised concerns among diplomats and government officials. Some openly speculated about whether the company was simply overcharging or the price tag included kickbacks to Mr. Rajapaksa.

By 2012, the port was struggling to attract ships — which preferred to berth nearby at the Colombo port — and construction costs were rising as the port began expanding ahead of schedule. The government decreed later that year that ships carrying car imports bound for Colombo port would instead offload their cargo at Hambantota to kick-start business there. Still, only 34 ships berthed at Hambantota in 2012, compared with 3,667 ships at the Colombo port, according to a Finance Ministry annual report.


A fish stall in a zone that is due to be turned into a large industrial area surrounding the Hambantota Port. Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times

“When I came to the government, I called the minister of national planning and asked for the justification of Hambantota Port,” Harsha de Silva, the state minister for national policies and economic affairs, said in an interview. “She said, ‘We were asked to do it, so we did it.’ ”

Determined to keep expanding the port, Mr. Rajapaksa went back to the Chinese government in 2012, asking for $757 million.
The Chinese agreed again. But this time, the terms were much steeper.

The first loan, at $307 million, had originally come at a variable rate that usually settled above 1 or 2 percent after the global financial crash in 2008. (For comparison, rates on similar Japanese loans for infrastructure projects run below half a percent.)
But to secure fresh funding, that initial loan was renegotiated to a much higher 6.3 percent fixed rate. Mr. Rajapaksa acquiesced.

The rising debt and project costs, even as the port was struggling, handed Sri Lanka’s political opposition a powerful issue, and it campaigned heavily on suspicions about China. Mr. Rajapaksa lost the election.

The incoming government, led by President Maithripala Sirisena, came to office with a mandate to scrutinize Sri Lanka’s financial deals. It also faced a daunting amount of debt: Under Mr. Rajapaksa, the country’s debt had increased threefold, to $44.8 billion when he left office. And for 2015 alone, a $4.68 billion payment was due at year’s end.

Chinese construction workers, bottom left, walking home from work in front of Colombo’s changing skyline.CreditAdam Dean for The New York Times Signing It AwayThe new government was eager to reorient Sri Lanka toward India, Japan and the West. But officials soon realized that no other country could fill the financial or economic space that China held in Sri Lanka.

“We inherited a purposefully run-down economy — the revenues were insufficient to pay the interest charges, let alone capital repayment,” said Ravi Karunanayake, who was finance minister during the new government’s first year in office.

“We did keep taking loans,” he added. “A new government can’t just stop loans. It’s a relay; you need to take them until economic discipline is introduced.”

The Central Bank estimated that Sri Lanka owed China about $3 billion last year. But Nishan de Mel, an economist at Verité Research, said some of the debts were off government books and instead registered as part of individual projects. He estimated that debt owed to China could be as much as $5 billion and was growing every year. In May, Sri Lanka took a new $1 billion loan from China Development Bank to help make its coming debt payment.

Government officials began meeting in 2016 with their Chinese counterparts to strike a deal, hoping to get the port off Sri Lanka’s balance sheet and avoid outright default. But the Chinese demanded that a Chinese company take a dominant equity share in the port in return, Sri Lankan officials say — writing down the debt was not an option China would accept.

When Sri Lanka was given a choice, it was over which state-owned company would take control: either China Harbor or China Merchants Port, according to the final agreement, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, although it was never released publicly in full.


Chinese workers in their dormitory in Colombo. Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times

China Merchants got the contract, and it immediately pressed for more: Company officials demanded 15,000 acres of land around the port to build an industrial zone, according to two officials with knowledge of the negotiations. The Chinese company argued that the port itself was not worth the $1.1 billion it would pay for its equity — money that would close out Sri Lanka’s debt on the port.

Some government officials bitterly opposed the terms, but there was no leeway, according to officials involved in the negotiations. The new agreement was signed in July 2017, and took effect in December.

The deal left some appearance of Sri Lankan ownership: Among other things, it created a joint company to manage the port’s operations and collect revenue, with 85 percent owned by China Merchants Port and the remaining 15 percent controlled by Sri Lanka’s government.

But lawyers specializing in port acquisitions said Sri Lanka’s small stake meant little, given the leverage that China Merchants Port retained over board personnel and operating decisions. And the government holds no sovereignty over the port’s land.

When the agreement was initially negotiated, it left open whether the port and surrounding land could be used by the Chinese military, which Indian officials asked the Sri Lankan government to explicitly forbid. The final agreement bars foreign countries from using the port for military purposes unless granted permission by the government in Colombo.

That clause is there because Chinese Navy submarines had already come calling to Sri Lanka.


The Port of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times

Strategic ConcernsChina had a stake in Sri Lanka’s main port as well: China Harbor was building a new terminal there, known at the time as Colombo Port City. Along with that deal came roughly 50 acres of land, solely held by the Chinese company, that Sri Lanka had no sovereignty on.

That was dramatically demonstrated toward the end of Mr. Rajapaksa’s term, in 2014. Chinese submarines docked at the harbor the same day that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan was visiting Colombo, in what was seen across the region as a menacing signal from Beijing.

When the new Sri Lankan government came to office, it sought assurances that the port would never again welcome Chinese submarines — of particular concern because they are difficult to detect and often used for intelligence gathering. But Sri Lankan officials had little real control.

Now, the handover of Hambantota to the Chinese has kept alive concerns about possible military use — particularly as China has continued to militarize island holdings around the South China Sea despite earlier pledges not to.

Sri Lankan officials are quick to point out that the agreement explicitly rules out China’s military use of the site. But others also note that Sri Lanka’s government, still heavily indebted to China, could be pressured to allow it.

And, as Mr. de Silva, the state minister for national policies and economic affairs, put it, “Governments can change.”

Now, he and others are watching carefully as Mr. Rajapaksa, China’s preferred partner in Sri Lanka, has been trying to stage a political comeback. The former president’s new opposition party swept municipal elections in February. Presidential elections are coming up next year, and general elections in 2020.

Although Mr. Rajapaksa is barred from running again because of term limits, his brother, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the former defense secretary, appears to be readying to take the mantle.

“It will be Mahinda Rajapaksa’s call. If he says it’s one of the brothers, that person will have a very strong claim,” said Ajith Nivard Cabraal, the central bank governor under Mr. Rajapaksa’s government, who still advises the family. “Even if he’s no longer the president, as the Constitution is structured, Mahinda will be the main power base.”

Reporting was contributed by Keith Bradsher and Sui-Lee Wee from Beijing, and Mujib Mashal, Dharisha Bastians and Arthur Wamanan from Sri Lanka. 

A version of this article appears in print on June 26, 2018, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: In Hock to China, Sri Lanka Gave Up Territory.

The Paddy Marketing Board (PMB) incurred a massive loss of Rs 7000 million from 2009 to 2014, PMB Chairman Upali Mohotti revealed. 

According to the Chairman, the PMB has continued as a loss-making government institution over the years. He says the incurred loss was a result of exporting rice to Somalia for free and selling metric tons of paddy to the private sector for the production of animal food during that time. The Chairman made these comments at a progress review meeting regarding the future activities of the PMB.

At the meeting, Minister of Agriculture Mahinda Amaraweera said that the PMB expects to create a competitive position in the market so that the farmers will be able to sell their paddy at a stable price in the future.

Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera said that in partnership with the AIIB, the government plans to implement the Urban Regeneration Programme which aims at relocating 50,000 low and lower middle-income households living in slums and shanties in Colombo City into new apartments. 

The Minister further said that the main focus of the concept of 'Sustainable Cities' should be on serving the poorest segments of the society by providing better living and working conditions for them by ensuring affordable housing, health care, water, sanitation and electricity. 

Samaraweera made these remarks at the Third Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) held yesterday in Mumbai, India.

He also reiterated that the Sri Lankan government has accorded high priority to achieve sustainable development in urban areas, while taking various policy measures to uplift the living conditions of the poor. "My government introduced a new Cabinet Portfolio three years back only to manage city development under the Megapolis and Western Region Development Ministry. In line with the Megapolis Development Plan, various development activities have been initiated targeting both economic and social development", Samaraweera said. 

Noting the frequent occurrence of natural disasters and the severity of their impact, the Minister said that various measures are being implemented to mitigate the effects of natural disasters and solicited the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank's assistance in this regard.

"The project of Reduction of Landslide Vulnerability Mitigation Measures is aimed at implementing mitigation measures and thereby minimizing the damages caused from landslides. It is evident that both the frequency of occurrence of disasters and their severity have been increasing in the recent past. Therefore, the AIIB collaboration was solicited for disaster risk reduction strategies to minimize the damages".

Samaraweera also underscored the importance of protecting lagoons and estuaries as envisioned in the Blue-Green Budget proposed by him last year. 

"The theme of my National Budget Proposals for 2018 was Blue-Green Economy. In this context, we recognised the inalienable relevance of ocean related economic potential of our country as an Island. Sri Lanka hosts over hundred lagoons and estuaries.

Environmental sustainability of those precious water bodies will ensure the well being of many aquatic resources. Therefore, we expect to implement a lagoon development project in the country for which the AIIB could become a strong partner in due course", he added.

Local civil society has condemned the actions of the Probation Department and the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) accusing them of attempting to send children back to Darun Nusra, a children’s home where sexual abuses of children have taken place.

Civil society also condemned state institutions for their inaction in finding suitable Government schools for the affected children to continue their education.

A statement signed by civil society organisations and individuals noted that in June 2017, an anonymous phone call was made to the NCPA that sexual abuses were being committed on the children residing in Darun Nusra.

During the police investigations, it was revealed that a male staff of this home was allegedly committing these offences and both the Matron and the Coordinator of Al-Muslimaath the charity managing Darun Nusra were reported about these incidents but did not take action.

Despite ongoing investigations into the allegations of abuse, which not only include the alleged abuser but also the matron and the Coordinator of Al-Muslimaath, the Probation Department has vehemently opposed calls by activists for the children to be transferred out of Darun Nusra for their own safety.

Officers from the Probation Department have consistently engaged in victim blaming in Court by portraying the two main victims of abuse as mentally unsound. One of the first children to be transferred out of Darun Nusra due to Court orders were sent by the Probation Department to a home which the Probation Officers themselves later admitted in Court as unsanitary, lacking in running water, and unsuitable for children.

Further in March 2018, an NCPA report found Darun Nusra to be unsuitable for children to live in and the institution requested the court to transfer the children out. However, in May 2018, the NCPA backtracked on this and sought to transfer some of the children back without explanation.

Furthermore, the Courts instructed the Probation Department and the NCPA to find suitable government schools for the children, yet for around three months both institutions have taken no concrete action. Instead, we are informed that at a meeting called by the NCPA with the guardians and Probation Officers in June 2018, the guardians were either pressured to take the children back home or return them to Darun Nusra if they want their education to continue.

The local civil society said that this raises many questions on why the state has been unwilling or unable to find suitable government schools in a country which has a tradition of providing free quality education.
“This also raises questions as to why the state continues to promote an organisation that is being investigated for allegations of child sexual abuse. As of today, the inefficiency of the Probation Department and NCPA has deprived these children of schooling for three months. We condemn this negligent and callous attitude of the Probation Department and the NCPA for failing to provide justice for children who are economically and socially vulnerable – many of whom have suffered recent trauma. This entire incident would not have happened if the Probation Department which is tasked with monitoring children’s homes had mechanisms to identify child abuse occurring within institutions. We condemn the Probation Commissioner of the Western Province, the Chairperson of the National Child Protection Authority, and the Secretary and the Minister of the Women and Child Affairs Ministry for not performing their roles responsibly. The conduct of the State institutions in this case also raises concerns about the welfare of other children in Probation Certified Homes who are under the overall care of these Institutions,” the statement said.

Local civil society has demanded that the Probation Department, NCPA and the Ministry of Education work together to immediately find Government schools with an English medium curriculum for the 13 children in this case.

They also demanded that the two children having special educational needs be enrolled in a suitable educational institution and that children transferred to a home located in Bandaragama, be relocated together immediately, as all parents who have visited it, have expressed deep dissatisfaction with the treatment of their children in this home. 

Source : Colombo Gazette

Two members of a family of Tamil asylum seekers from the Queensland town of Biloela have won an 11th-hour injunction preventing their imminent deportation.

Nadesalingam and Priya and their two young Australian-born daughters have been in immigration detention in Melbourne since March, when they were forcibly removed from their home in Biloela in central Queensland.

The family had previously been told by Australian Border Force officials they could be deported as early as Tuesday.

But federal court justice Bernard Murphy on Monday granted an urgent injunction prohibiting immigration authorities from deporting Priya and their eldest daughter, three-year-old Kopika.

“It’s a good result and we’re all taking a big sigh of relief,” family friend Simone Cameron said.

On Thursday last week, the federal circuit court denied Priya’s bid to stay. The court was asked to consider whether her plea for protection should be reexamined by the immigration assessment authority.

That decision was subject to a 21-day appeal period.

But on Friday, the ABF issued deportation notices to both Nadesalingam and Priya and told the family they could be sent back to Sri Lanka from Tuesday. Advocates for the family said issuing the notices was “underhanded” as they had not exhausted their legal options in Australia.

Justice Murphy on Monday restrained immigration authorities from removing Priya and her eldest daughter until their appeal is finalised. A date for their appeal is yet to be fixed.

Nadesalingam’s application for protection had been rejected by Australian authorities, and his appeals extinguished. Nadesalingam and Priya arrived in Australia separately and their immigration cases have been dealt with independently.

Cameron, one of many Biloela residents who has rallied behind the family, said supporters would continue to campaign for a reprieve.

As arrest warrant has been issued for the arrest of former MP Sarana Gunawardena by Colombo Additional Magistrate, Thanuja Jayatunge today. 

The warrant was issued as the Former MP failed to appear for the case filed by the Bribery Commission regarding the lease of vehicles without following due tender procedure during his tenure as the Chairman of the Development Lotteries Board.

Hundreds of postal workers held demonstrations yesterday in several parts of Sri Lanka, including Colombo, Gampaha, Galle, Ambalangoda, Kaluthara and Trincomalee in support of their demands. The national strike of more than 25,000 postal workers that began on June 11 has now entered its third week.

The government is adamant that it will not grant the workers’ demand to abolish the 2006 circular, which has affected promotion and slashed salaries. The minister of postal services, M.H.A Haleem, yesterday evening stated that a “solution” would be found today, but did not say how. Last week he attacked the strike as being “politically motivated” and aimed at “toppling the government.”

On his instructions, postal authorities cancelled the leave of postal workers and threatened to sack those who failed to report for duty by June 19. The government also took a decision to deploy police at post offices. Despite these threats, however, the government failed to break the strike.

The National Salary and Cadre Commission (NSCC) told the press that the government has no money to grant the workers’ demands. The NSCC declared that “it will cost the government” an additional 8 billion rupees (USD 51 million), adding that granting the demands would create “complications” and anomalies in relation to other public sector workers.

The government has intensified its implementation of the economic reforms dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), including freezing salaries and the privatization of public services, including the postal department.

Striking postal workers last week

The Joint Postal Trade Union Collective (JPTUC) and Union of Postal and Telecommunication Officers (UPTO) are promoting the myth that workers can win by appealing to reactionary forces such as Buddhist prelates to exert more pressure on the government.

On Saturday, the union bureaucrats met the chief Buddhist prelate of Malwatta Chapter in Kandy to obtain his “blessing” for the strike. The prelate had said either unions or the government must be “flexible,” meaning workers should water down or abandon their demands. The conservative Buddhist hierarchy in Sri Lanka is a major prop for capitalist rule.

The union leaders are continuing a futile “sathyagraha” or sit-in in Colombo and several outstations. Yesterday after failure of discussions with government authorities, JPTUC secretary Chinthaka Bandara said that next step would be to resort to a “fast until death.” However, like the other trade unions, the JPTUC leaders are deeply hostile to any turn by postal workers to other sections of the working class.

In contrast to the union leaders’ back peddling, about 15 postal workers gathered outside the Matara post office to discuss the political challenges they face with leading members of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP).

After reading an SEP leaflet, the workers said the union leaders had not told them anything about the government’s restructuring program. The leaflet explained that the government has prepared restructuring proposals, which have been handed to the unions, for postal services, the railways and education in line with the IMF’s directives. The 2006 circular was an initial attempt to slash the postal service.

The discussion focused on the need to fight for socialist policies and to build independent workers’ action committees as the trade unions had become a barrier for any struggle for the interests of the working class.

Upali Jayathunga, a postman, said: “I joined the service in 1989. Even though I have worked for 30 years, my total monthly salary is just 39,000 rupees [$US260]. I have to pay 7,000 rupees monthly as an installment to pay back loans from the banks. With five children, I can’t cope on my salary so I am doing a security job to earn 800 rupees a day.”

Postman Upali Jaythunga
Jayathunga commented that the media were mostly silent about the strike and the problems faced by postal workers. “I thank your World Socialist Web Site for supporting us. It gives us strength,” he said.

Ronal Shantha, another postal employee, said: “It is true that we need a political program for our struggle. No other organisation or media supports us genuinely like you do.”
Upul Nishantha from the Ambalangoda post office told WSWS reporters that he doubted that workers could win their demands by exerting pressure on the government. “The unions say that the strike will continue until the prime minister or president will give a promise,” he said. “We have got such promises in earlier strikes but nothing happened.” He criticised the unions for not allowing discussions by workers about what to do or what is happening.

Shantha joined the postal service in 2007 as a porter with a basic monthly wage of 22,000 rupees ($US140). In 2015 he was promoted to postman grade, but had to work for the same salary.

“A postman’s basic monthly salary is 25,000 rupees. But there are five postmen in our office that do not get the due salary,” Shantha said. After deductions for loans, he receives only 21,000 rupees per month. “My mother and older sister are also living with us. We manage the family expenses with the mother’s pension.”

He said that several colleagues in his office had to do part-time work like driving taxis as they could not manage on their salary. “We must form action committees and discuss every issue in the struggle and develop a program to continue the fight,” he concluded.

Employees from the Kandy post office also spoke to WSWS reporters and expressed their opposition to the unions. One worker said unions were putting faith in the government, saying a solution will be given, but workers have had experience with the current and previous governments. “The unions are demanding a written assurance saying it would be a guarantee. However, as in the past, this time they will also tear up such agreements.”

In Chilaw, a postal worker told the WSWS: “The president or the prime minister has not said a single word regarding our demands so far. So we understand the government’s position regarding our demands. We have no trust in the government’s promises as we have been cheated again and again. We must join other workers to broaden our struggle.”


(WSWS)

Sri Lankan Army commander and 80 Sri Lankan Armed Forces personnel and their families commenced on a three day trip to Bodh Gaya in India under the special invitation of the Indian High Commission.

Releasing a press release the Indian High Commission in Colombo stated: 

“The High Commission of India organized a special visit to Bodh Gaya in India for 80 Sri Lankan Armed Forces personnel and their families. The three-day visit includes travel to and from India on an Indian Air Force C-17 Globemaster aircraft, which was specifically deployed from India to transport the travellers. Apart from a visit to the sacred Mahabodhi Temple, various other events and activities, including interaction with their Indian counterparts and a tour of the Officers Training Academy (OTA) at Gaya, are part of the group’s itinerary, which is being coordinated by the Indian Army.           

Shri Taranjit Singh Sandhu, High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka, and Lt. General Mahesh Senanayake, Sri Lankan Army Commander met the Sri Lankan personnel and their families at Colombo airport on June 24, before the group embarked upon their visit to India. The travellers shared their excitement about their special visit, and thanked the Government of India for organizing it.        

The visit to Bodh Gaya is yet another manifestation of the shared Buddhist heritage of India and Sri Lanka, and will help deepen the bonds of friendship and camaraderie that exist between the Armed Forces of both countries.”

The Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Navy (International Programmes) , Rear Admiral Francis D Morley together with his delegation met Commander of the Sri Lanka Navy, Vice Admiral Sirimevan Ranasinghe, at the Naval Headquarters in Colombo, today (26) to discuss matters of mutual interest.

Vice Admiral Ranasinghe paid his gratitude to Rear Admiral Morley for the cooperation extended to the Sri Lanka Navy. Mementos were also exchanged between the top ranking officers symbolizing the event.

Minister of Finance Mangala Samaraweera at the launch of the 'Enterprise Sri Lanka' (ESL) program recently said the country must develop a comprehensive entrepreneurship structure that encourages people, especially graduates, to embark on building their own businesses.

Under the ESL program, "Arabuma" loan scheme has been tailor-made for the youth to encourage young graduates to enter into the economic development process by turning their innovative business ideas into potential businesses. The scheme ensures the cash flow through loans at zero interest rate, with a full government guarantee.

Under the program of supporting to SME companies, the youth are invited to establish SME companies with the technical support of the government and the needed financial and non financial supports is also provided to that companies could engage in any business from agriculture to apparels to IT.

The Finance Minister said that ESL also has several other target groups including micro-enterprises, self-employees, young entrepreneurs as well as selected vital groups of society.

Samaraweera said that at present whenever enterpreneurs called over at banks, they were asked to name suitable guarantors. As a result, even if they had a good business proposal, they were unable to obtain a bank facility.

That era is going to end. We have held a meeting with state banks and instructed them to have a separate Enterprise Sri Lanka desk staffed by employees knowledgeable on the loan scheme, he said.