The Colombo Port City project was promoted as the largest foreign investment initiative in Sri Lanka’s history. It promised to transform the nation’s economy by attracting $15 billion in foreign direct investment, creating more than 80,000 jobs and positioning Colombo as a leading international financial and commercial hub.

These promises formed the basis upon which Sri Lanka agreed to lease 116 hectares of strategically valuable reclaimed land for 99 years. Such an unprecedented concession was justified on the expectation that it would deliver exceptional economic benefits to the people.

Several years after the project commenced, it is time for an honest assessment. The question is no longer whether Port City has potential. The question is whether it has delivered the outcomes that justified granting such a long term lease over one of the country’s most valuable national assets.

Sri Lanka continues to experience a significant outflow of skilled workers. Thousands of graduates, professionals and young people leave the country because they cannot find adequate employment or economic opportunities at home.

If Port City was expected to become a major source of employment, the public deserves to know exactly what has been achieved. How many people are currently employed within Port City? How many are Sri Lankan citizens? How many are under the age of 35? How many are foreign nationals? Most importantly, how close is the project to delivering the promised 80,000 jobs?

Investment announcements alone do not strengthen an economy. Only actual foreign direct investment creates new businesses, generates employment and contributes to national income.

The government should publish annual figures showing the actual foreign direct investment received through Port City, the source countries, the sectors involved and the number of completed projects now in operation. Only verified investment figures – not projected values or future commitments – can demonstrate whether Port City has achieved its original purpose.

Of the 178 hectares of marketable land within Port City, 116 hectares were leased for 99 years. Taxpayers deserve complete transparency regarding how this nationally significant land is being utilised.

The government should disclose how much land has already been leased or transferred, the identity and nationality of investors, the duration and conditions of leases, the proportion occupied by Sri Lankan enterprises and the land that remains undeveloped.

Transparency must extend beyond land. The public deserves to know how much revenue has been generated through leasing and commercial activities, how much revenue has been received by the government, the taxes collected and the total economic return generated for the country.

These figures should be compared with the costs incurred in administering the project, including salaries, administration and capital expenditure. A useful indicator would be the amount of public money spent to generate each US dollar of actual foreign direct investment.

Investment figures, employment statistics, land allocations, revenue, expenditure and performance indicators should all be published regularly. Transparency is not a burden; it is a fundamental obligation when managing public assets on behalf of the nation.

Sri Lanka needs foreign investment to create jobs, introduce new technology, expand exports and stimulate economic growth. However, investment should never come at the expense of sovereignty, public revenue, employment opportunities or the long term interests of future generations.

Foreign investment should create shared prosperity, not simply transfer valuable national assets while providing uncertain economic returns.

Given the scale of the commitments originally made, the government should commission a comprehensive independent review of the Port City project. That review should evaluate actual investment received, employment created, revenue generated, land utilisation, governance, transparency and whether the project has achieved the objectives upon which the 99-year lease was granted. The findings should be tabled in parliament and released to the public.

If an independent assessment confirms that the project has failed to achieve the investment, employment and economic outcomes that justified the 99-year lease, the government should consider renegotiating the existing arrangements or if legally justified, terminating the lease and restructuring the project so that it better serves the national interest.

Colombo Port City remains one of the most ambitious development projects in Sri Lanka’s history. Its success should be measured not by promotional campaigns but by tangible outcomes: investment received, jobs created, revenue generated and opportunities provided to citizens.

The people deserve facts, transparency and accountability. If Port City has delivered on its promises, the evidence should be made public. If it has not, the government must have the courage to reconsider the existing arrangements and ensure that one of the country’s most valuable national assets genuinely serves the interests of Sri Lanka and future generations.

Source:groundviews.org

Newly appointed Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka Wei Huaxiang yesterday signalled a push for deeper economic cooperation between the two countries, saying China was ready to strengthen the alignment of development strategies and expand mutually beneficial cooperation.

Ambassador Wei, who arrived in Sri Lanka yesterday to assume office, said bilateral relations had entered a new phase following high-level engagements between the two countries in 2025.

“China is ready to walk side by side with Sri Lanka, strengthen the synergy of development strategies, and open up broad prospects for mutual success and shared prosperity,” he said in a written statement delivered on arrival.

He pointed to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s and Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya’s respective visits to China in 2025 and meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, saying the engagements had provided “new strategic guidance” for bilateral relations.

“China always takes Sri Lanka as a priority in its neighborhood diplomacy,” Ambassador Wei said, describing the two countries as partners in development and “win-win cooperation”.

He said China-Sri Lanka cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative and across other sectors had produced results benefiting both countries, while highlighting the longstanding economic relationship symbolised by the Rubber-Rice Pact.

Looking ahead, Ambassador Wei pledged to work towards expanding bilateral economic cooperation during his tenure.

“We will do our utmost to carry forward our traditional friendship, expand mutually beneficial cooperation, and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese institutions and citizens,” he said.

His appointment comes ahead of the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Sri Lanka and China and the 75th anniversary of the Rubber-Rice Pact in 2027.

The Indian government has publicly raised a demand for early Provincial Council elections in Sri Lanka despite knowing that powerful interest groups in the country are arrayed against devolution of power.

During a hectic day-long visit to Colombo on Wednesday, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri urged President Anura Dissanayake to hold the much-delayed balloting to the Provincial Councils “at the earliest”.

It is the closest India has come to saying that the elections, last held in 2014, should not be subject to repeated postponements for various reasons, including a plan to reserve seats for women.

Provincial Councils with limited autonomous powers came into being in all nine provinces of Sri Lanka as a result of the 1987 India-Sri Lanka Agreement, which sought to end Tamil separatism.

In the context of the Tamil-majority northern and multi-racial eastern provinces, where a war raged for an independent Tamil Eelam, the provincial bodies were conceptualised as a political alternative to Tamil separatism.

But both the Tamil Tigers, who were finally crushed militarily in 2009, and Sinhalese-Buddhist hardliners turned against the 1987 pact, which birthed the Provincial Councils after the 13th amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution.

While Sri Lanka’s dominant ruling party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), has shed its long-standing anti-India posture, not everyone in the Marxist outfit is comfortable with the idea of devolution of power, which is what Provincial Councils are all about.

The JVP is not alone in this respect, say Indian official circles with intimate knowledge of Sri Lankan affairs.

“Influential people in the Sri Lankan landscape are opposed to the Provincial Councils,” said one source, adding that the fear was that any power-sharing arrangement could dent the country’s unitary form of governance.

This was stated more than once, even after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was routed when Mahinda Rajapakse was the president.

The perennial argument given to Indian officials was that while the Indian landmass perhaps needed states for administrative convenience, an island nation like Sri Lanka did not need its provinces to have councils, even with limited power on subjects such as education, health, and agriculture.

Indian officials would remind their Sri Lankan interlocutors that India was also a unitary state with a cozy federal structure and that the division of powers between a strong Centre and the states had worked reasonably well despite some irritants.

After the then-northeastern province was split into two in 2008, the last Provincial Council elections were held in the Northern Province in 2013 and in the Eastern Province in 2012.

In recent times, the JVP-led Sri Lankan government has been accused by the opposition of sidelining elected representatives in areas of local governance – a development not viewed favourably in New Delhi.

Seen alongside the failure of successive governments to hold Provincial Council elections, a feeling gained strength in India that the limited autonomy granted to the provinces, including Tamil-majority areas, should not be allowed to be stifled by political opportunism.

India is aware that, notwithstanding what the Tamil parties in Sri Lanka may desire, the Northern and Eastern Provinces are unlikely to be merged again, largely because of opposition from the Muslim community.

Of the three districts which constitute the Eastern Province, Tamils are in a majority – and convincingly — only in Batticaloa. Muslims, who too speak Tamil but are counted as a separate ethnic group, form the single largest bloc in both Trincomalee and Amparai.

While Sri Lankan authorities did their best during the Tamil separatist war to cause fissures between Tamils and Muslims, the LTTE deepened the divide by massacring Muslim civilians in the East and forcibly expelling thousands of Muslims from the North. Muslim Home Guard units, for their part, were also implicated in grave atrocities against Tamil civilians in the East, including killings and massacres that further entrenched hostility between the two communities.

Although present-day Tamil and Muslim leaders have overcome the earlier bitterness between the two communities, Muslims have no desire to be ruled by Tamil politicians in any province where they live in substantial numbers.

The Indian foreign secretary made another important point, this time to Tamil leaders active in the north and the east.

He said that, on constitutional reforms, India could not advocate arrangements benefiting only a single ethnic community and would instead emphasise equality for all Sri Lankan citizens.

This amounted to an unstated affirmation that there was no stomach in India for issues like “federalism” and “internal self-determination” – concepts which are thrown up by Tamil leaders still tied to the Tamil Tiger ideology.

It was also noted that ahead of a meeting between Tamil and Muslim parties with President Dissanayake, a group called the North-East Civil Society raised the need for a federal set-up in Sri Lanka.

Indian officials are clear that federalism is a non-starter in Sri Lanka and that an overwhelming majority of the Sinhalese community view federalism as a dirty word, almost akin to separatism.

But sections of the Tamil diaspora linked to the erstwhile LTTE and some Tamil politicians in Sri Lanka with a similar view keep clamouring for federalism.

At times, they involve leaders in India’s Tamil Nadu state in their political machinations.

In his diplomatic style, Foreign Secretary Misri drew a red line for the Tamils as well — defining what India can support and what it cannot.

Source:jaffnamonitor.com

On 24 May 2026, speaking at the opening of the NPP’s district office in Jaffna, General Secretary of the JVP Tilvin Silva made two linked claims: (a) money allocated in the previous budget for holding Provincial Council (PC) elections were reallocated to finance LKR 500 billion for Cyclone Ditwah recovery, and (b) therefore the election could not be held this year.

To check these claims, FactCheck.lk analysed the Constitution of Sri Lanka, Public Financial Management (PFM) Act No. 44 of 2024, Budget Estimates 2026, Supplementary Estimate 2026 and Supreme Court (SC) judgement SC.FR 69/2023.

Silva’s claim requires two propositions to be correct. First, that the funds allocated for Provincial Council elections were redirected towards Cyclone Ditwah recovery. Second, that this provides a valid basis for not holding the election this year.

On the first proposition, the available budget documents do not support Silva’s claim. The Budget Estimates 2026 allocated LKR five billion to the Election Commission for conducting elections. Separately, the Supplementary Estimate dated 19 December 2025 provided LKR 500 billion for Cyclone Ditwah recovery. However, the Supplementary Estimate identifies this LKR 500 billion as an “additional allocation.” This means that it was an allocation made in addition to the expenditure already approved through the 2026 Budget, and not a “reallocation” of the Election Commission’s election-related budget as stated by Mr. Silva.

On the second proposition, the legal position also does not support the claim that an election may be delayed merely on the basis of financial difficulty. The same argument was put forward by the executive branch of government in 2023 for delaying the local government elections and later adjudicated by the Supreme Court (SC) (See judgement SC.FR 69/2023). The Court held that ensuring the right to vote by the holding of elections is a fundamental right guaranteed under Article 14(1)(a); and that any action that restricted that fundamental right would be valid only if it was based on a constitutionally valid law adopted by parliament. The SC found that no existing law permitted the executive to postpone elections on the basis of financial difficulty. Neither did FactCheck.lk find any Act of Parliament, Emergency Regulation approved by Parliament, or other legally recognised instrument, since the decision of the court in 2023, that allows the postponement of PC elections on the basis of Cyclone Ditwah recovery expenditure.

Since this specific reasoning has been specifically adjudicated by the Supreme Court it is clear that even the executive cannot lawfully delay an election on the basis of lacking funds.

On that basis, Silva’s claim is incorrect on both grounds. First, the LKR 500 billion allocated for Cyclone Ditwah recovery was an additional allocation, not a diversion of the funds allocated to the Election Commission for the PC elections. Second, no legally recognised basis has been identified to conclude that the PC elections cannot be held this year due to financial constraints.

Therefore, we classify Silva’s statement as FALSE.

*FactCheck.lk’s verdict is based on the most recent information that is publicly accessible. As with every fact check, FactCheck.lk will revisit the assessment if new information becomes available.

FactCheck.lk is a platform run by Verité Research.

For more fact checks, visit our website at www.factcheck.lk.

Source:Dailymirror.lk

India’s message couched in Misri’s diplomatese Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, during his brief Colombo visit, has urged the Sri Lankan government to hold the long-delayed Provincial Council (PC) elections “at the earliest”, which is a courteous, professional stand-in for “soon” in diplomatese, if you like. Thus, India has begun to crank up pressure on the Dissanayake government to hold the PC elections. India has given a fillip to a campaign by some Tamil-speaking political parties to pressure the government to hold PC elections held soon. Misri has also asked President Dissanayake to “fully implement” constitutional provisions (read the 13th Amendment to the Constitution) to meet the aspirations of the Tamil people.

The irony of an Indian Foreign Secretary asking a JVP-led government to hold the PC elections expeditiously may not have been lost on keen political observers. The JVP killed thousands of people and destroyed public property worth billions of rupees in the late 1980s during its terror campaign against “Indian expansionism”, the 13th Amendment and the establishment of the PCs. It even murdered traders who sold Indian products, such as onions. Damage caused by recent riots to Negombo and Mahara prisons pales into insignificance in comparison to the widespread destruction of state assets by the JVP during its second uprising. Today, India has the JVP leaders eating out of its hand. It is India that enabled the JVP-led NPP to gain international legitimacy by extending a landmark official invitation to JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake in early 2024.

The 13th Amendment is akin to a shrapnel fragment lodged close to Sri Lanka’s heart. It has been left embedded, given the complications an attempt to remove it could cause. Sri Lanka has chosen to live with it. This made-in-India constitutional amendment which provides for devolution at the provincial level, can also be described as a child born of rape; it came into being as a result of India’s rape of Sri Lanka’s sovereignty in 1987. Now that it is part of Sri Lanka’s Constitution, it has to be implemented and action taken to ensure that the PC system functions under elected representatives.

No less a person than former Chairman of the Election Commission Mahinda Deshapriya has stated that it amounts to a grave violation of the Constitution for bureaucrats to run the PCs without elected representatives. In an interview with Hiru TV recently, he stressed that all political parties had to be held accountable for the serious violation of the Constitution; there was no graver sin than postponing elections, and the PC polls had to be held fast. Some election monitoring outfits have also urged the government to conduct the PC elections soon.

All self-righteous, cantankerous politicians in both the government and the Opposition should be ashamed of themselves. They teamed up to postpone the PC polls indefinitely by amending the Provincial Council Elections Act during the UNP-led Yahapalana government in 2017. All the parties represented in Parliament at that time, including the UNP, the SLFP, the JVP, the SLMC and the ITAK/TNA, and the current SLPP leaders who were in the “Joint Opposition”, unashamedly sank their political differences and colluded to postpone the PC elections through a Christmas tree Bill, consisting of more sections incorporated thereinto at the committee stage than the original text under the pretext of increasing female representation in the PCs.

There have been five Presidents—Mahinda Rajapaksa, Maithripala Sirisena, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Ranil Wickremesinghe and Anura Kumara Dissanayake—and four governments, led by the SLFP, the UNP, the SLPP and the NPP, respectively, since the last PC election was held in the Uva Province in 2014. Some provinces last went to the polls in 2012.

The government ought to overcome its fear of facing elections and hold the PC polls soon under the proportional representation system by amending the Provincial Council Elections Act to clear the legal barriers. After all, the NPP made a solemn pledge in its election manifesto, A Thriving Nation: A Beautiful Life, that it would hold the PC polls within one year of forming a government. It should fulfil that promise without delay. A nation cannot “thrive” and life is not “beautiful” when elections are postponed on one pretext or another

The central bank of Sri Lanka has organised a digital payments promotion in Jaffna to raise awareness among government officials, the business community, and members of the public.

This event is part of the nationwide campaign launched by CBSL in collaboration with financial institutions and other stakeholders.

“At this event, the public will be able to receive personalised assistance from financial institutions, including banks, finance companies and e-money service providers to register and effectively use a wide range of digital payment services” CBSL said.

The programme will be attended by CBSL officials, banks, non-bank financial institutions, and LankaPay, the operator of the national retail payment system.

Financial institutions together with LPPL will conduct a merchant engagement initiative in the Jaffna town area for business entities to obtain the LANKAQR payment acceptance facility.

“CBSL invites members of the public and the business community of Jaffna to take advantage of this opportunity to enhance their awareness and experience the conveniences of digital payments with the guidance and personalised assistance provided by the financial institutions.”

The event will be on August 7 and 8 at Cargills Square, Jaffna, from 8.30 am to 7 pm.