Category: News

The Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) is considering bringing in a no-confidence motion against Speaker Ashoka Ranwala as an option, SJB MP Ajith P. Perera said today.

“The SJB Parliamentary Group is to meet tomorrow to discuss the matter and bringing in a no confidence motion against the Speaker is an option which we will consider,” he told the Daily Mirror.

Speaker Ranwala is at the centre of a controversy after it has been reported that he has carried a fake doctoral title.

Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd. on Tuesday said it will finance the Colombo West International Terminal project in Sri Lanka through the company’s internal accruals and opted out of US funding.

The Colombo project is progressing well and is on track for commissioning by early next year, the company said in an exchange filing.

“The project will be financed through the company’s internal accruals and capital management plan. We have withdrawn our request for financing from the DFC,” it added.

Last year, the Adani Group received US$ 553 million in funding from the US International Development Finance Corp. for the strategically significant Colombo West International Terminal.

The decision to withdraw from US financing comes after the Sri Lanka Ports Authority last month reaffirmed its commitment for Adani Port’s Colombo West International Project.

In a statement, SLPA Chairman Admiral Sirimewan Ranasinghe (Retd) emphasised that there is no immediate plan to reassess or terminate the agreement.

Adani Group is playing a vital role in expanding the country’s port infrastructure. The Colombo terminal project, which involves a $ 1billion fund infusion, will mark the largest foreign direct investment in Sri Lanka’s port sector.

When complete, the terminal will be able to handle Ultra Large Container Vessels (ULCVs) with capacities of 24,000 TEUs and is expected to have an annual handling capacity of over 3.2 million TEUs.

The Port of Colombo, the largest transhipment hub in the Indian Ocean, has been operating at over 90% utilisation since 2021, highlighting the need for additional capacity.

The Colombo West International Terminal project, launched in September 2021, aims to address this demand.

Adani Ports, in partnership with the Sri Lanka Ports Authority and Sri Lankan conglomerate John Keells Holdings, committed over US$700 million to develop the CWIT.

This investment is expected to make the CWIT the largest and deepest container terminal in Sri Lanka.

With a quay length of 1,400 metres and an alongside depth of 20 metres, the terminal will accommodate Ultra Large Container Vessels (ULCVs) with capacities of up to 24,000 TEUs.

Once fully operational, it will have an annual handling capacity of over 3.2 million TEUs.

The new terminal is strategically designed to cater to the growing economies in the Bay of Bengal, leveraging Sri Lanka’s prime location on major global shipping routes and its proximity to expanding markets in the region.

Sri Lanka has received the grant of 11.28 million meters of fabric required to be provided for schoolchildren as uniform materials for the year 2025, from the People’s Republic of China.

The fabric grant was officially handed over to the Minister of Education, Higher Education and Vocational Education, Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya by the Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka Qi Zhenhong during an event held at the Colombo Port today (10).

The 11.28 million meters of fabric, valued at around Rs. 5.2 billion, will be distributed among the students of 10,096 government and government-aided schools and 822 ‘pirivens’.

The provision of uniform fabric to students free of charge has been carried out continuously by the Ministry of Education since 1992, and vouchers were issued to obtain school uniforms during the period from 2015 to 2020. Again, beginning from the year 2021, uniforms for school students were produced and purchased from local textile manufacturers.

However, in view of the economic situation faced by the country due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the People’s Republic of China provided 70% of the uniform requirements for the year 2023 as a grant and purchased the remaining 30% from local textile manufacturers.

Sri Lanka’s government approved receiving of the fabric grant for the year 2025, after testing the sample sent to the Ministry of Education in relation to the relevant stock of fabric by the Sri Lanka Textile and Garment Institute (SLITA), and upon receiving the recommendation that the fabric is suitable for use by school students.

Speaking during the event, Prime Minister Dr. Amarasuriya expressed gratitude to the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese President.

Commenting further, she noted: “The education is an extremely high priority for our country, and we know that China also values education greatly, and sees education as one of the primary modes through which we can reach development.”

“For us as a government, investing in education is incredibly important. Investing in education means making it possible for all children irrespective of any socio-economic difference or position-to be able to accept education with dignity”, Dr. Amarasuriya added.

The International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) has submitted more than 60 sanctions and visa ban requests against Sri Lankan public and security officials to date for human rights and economic crimes in Sri Lanka and multiple universal jurisdiction cases.

These have been sent to the Governments of the US, UK, Australia, Canada and the EU as well as the UN.

The submissions cover gross violations of human rights and significant corruption in respect of the Sri Lankan army, navy, air force, police and intelligence officials, Tamil paramilitaries, as well as civil servants including judges and former ministers, the ITJP said.

The gross human rights violations and atrocity crimes include extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearance, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, and various forms of sexual violence, perpetrated both during and after the civil war.

These range from attacks against civilians that may amount to serious international crimes, including war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In addition, the focus is on significant corruption which is structurally embedded in Sri Lankan governance and public institutions which encompasses undue interference with judicial processes that further sets back accountability efforts for underlying human rights violations, as well as abuses of power. In this regard, submissions look at state-owned enterprises and misappropriation of public funds that resulted in huge financial losses for the entire country, and contributed to the economic crisis in the country.

Furthermore, visa ban requests have been made for a number of identified former Indian Peacekeeping Force officers alleged to have been complicit in gross human rights violations and mass atrocity crimes, in the period when deployed in Sri Lanka in the late eighties.

“In the absence of any criminal accountability to date, it is vital to continue to document past and current crimes, analyse the evidence and use every channel to keep on asserting the truth.

We hope the new government in the UK will sanction Sri Lankans on Human Rights Day this year (10 December) for their alleged role in war crimes during the end of the country’s conflict”, said Yasmin Sooka, executive director of the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP).

The ITJP has submitted lengthy sanctions dossiers on General Shavendra Silva1 in 20211 and General Jagath Jayasuriya in 20221 to the UK Government, as well as sending dossiers to the Governments of Canada, Australia and the EU.

In 2020, Shavendra Silva was publicly designated in the US under 7031c of the Appropriations Act for his role in gross human rights violations1 and it is believed Jagath Jayasuriya has also been denied US visas though not publicly named.

Another accountability tool that the ITJP has utilised has been filing universal jurisdictions for war crimes: in 2017 the ITJP filed universal jurisdiction cases for war crimes against Jayasuriya in Brazil and Chile1 based on his role in one of the country’s most notorious army garrisons known as Joseph Camp1.

This was followed up with a criminal complaint in Australia that the federal police failed to investigate1. A Torture Victim Protection Act case was filed in the US against Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2019 and a criminal complaint submitted in Singapore in 2022.

A further universal jurisdiction case is under investigation in an undisclosed jurisdiction against a retired senior member of the Sri Lankan Army.

Additionally, two linked war crimes cases involving suspects from a Sri Lankan Tamil paramilitary group aligned to the military were referred to the UK’s Metropolitan Police which made two arrests and recently put out a public appeal for information.

Billionaire Gautam Adani-led conglomerate on Tuesday said it will use its own resources to fund a Sri Lankan port project and not seek US funding.

In an exchange filing late on Tuesday, Adani Ports and SEZ Ltd said the project “is on track for commissioning by early next year” and added that the company will fund the ongoing project through “internal accruals”, aligning with its capital management strategy.

The company said it has withdrawn its 2023 “request for financing from the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC)”.

The US International Development Finance Corp, in November last year, agreed to provide a USD 553 million loan to support the development, construction, and operation of a deep-water container terminal called the Colombo West International Terminal (CWIT) at the Port of Colombo in Sri Lanka.

A consortium of Adani Ports, Sri Lankan conglomerate John Keells Holdings Plc, and the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) is developing the CWIT.

Also Read: Adani Ports’ concession extended, raising concerns on monopoly, revenue loss
DFC financing was part of the US government’s broader efforts to counter China’s growing influence in the region and was seen as an endorsement of Adani’s ability to develop world-class infrastructure.

However, the loan process stalled after the DFC asked that the agreement between Adani and the SLPA be amended to align with their conditions, which then went under review by Sri Lanka’s Attorney General. As the project is nearing completion, Adani Ports, which holds 51 per cent of the venture, chose to proceed with the project without funding from the DFC, officials privy to the process explained.

The US agency had recently stated that it was “actively assessing the ramifications” of the bribery allegations against the Adani group executives. It had so far not disbursed any money to the ports-to-energy conglomerate.

Last month, the US Department of Justice charged the Adani group’s founder chairman Gautam Adani, and seven others over allegedly conspiring to pay USD 265 million in bribes to Indian officials to secure lucrative solar power supply contracts that were expected to yield USD 2 billion in profits over 20 years.

Adani group has denied all charges as baseless and vowed to pursue all possible legal recourse.

The Port of Colombo is the largest and busiest transhipment port in the Indian Ocean. It has been operating at more than 90 per cent utilisation since 2021, signalling its need for additional capacity.

Also Read: US joins Adani Group to build terminal at Colombo port
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The geopolitically sensitive port project in Sri Lanka is as much of a move by the US to counter Chinese influence in the island nation.

Phase 1 of the project is scheduled to become commercially operational by Q1 2025.

The new terminal will cater to growing economies in the Bay of Bengal, taking advantage of Sri Lanka’s prime position on major shipping routes and its proximity to these expanding markets.

The Colombo West International Terminal (CWIT) project was initiated in September 2021, when Adani Ports signed an agreement with the Sri Lanka Ports Authority and Sri Lankan conglomerate John Keells Holdings, pledging over USD 700 million to expand the capabilities of Colombo Port.

The CWIT will be Sri Lanka’s largest and deepest container terminal, with a quay length of 1,400 metres and an alongside depth of 20 metres. When complete, the terminal will be able to handle Ultra Large Container Vessels (ULCVs) with capacities of 24,000 TEUs and is expected to have an annual handling capacity of over 3.2 million TEUs.

As of September 30, 2024, Adani Ports had approximately USD 1.1 billion (Rs 8,893 crore) in cash reserves and generated an operating profit of USD 2.3 billion (Rs 18,846 crore) in the past 12 months.