Category: News

A Chinese company embroiled in a dispute with Sri Lanka over organic fertilizer, has made a formal complaint with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Qingdao Seawin Biological Group Co., Ltd, in an email to Daily Mirror sent through a local agent, said that the complaint was made just before the company and Sri Lanka reached an agreement over the payment for the disputed fertilizer.

“Before reaching a Terms of Settlement on the L/C enjoining order cases between Seawin and the buyers on Jan 5, 2022, Seawin has filed a complaint with FAO and IPPC headquarters and applied for international institutions to intervene in the investigation. The above international institutions also replied to Seawin by email, and they can intervene in the investigation if necessary,” Seawin said.

The Chinese company wants FAO to intervene and eliminate misunderstandings as soon as possible through technical consultations to avoid losses of both sides.

“At present, there are still some irresponsible university professors in Sri Lanka who are doing their best to resist the implementation of the president’s green agriculture strategy and question the test reports of international authoritative institutions without reason, regardless of the strategic policy of green agriculture promulgated by the president, the long-term interests of Sri Lankan people, and do not contribute to the country and the people with their own study and knowledge,” Seawin said in the email to Daily Mirror.

In its complaint to the FAO, Seawin said they respect the right of each member state to control the spread of pests, in accordance with the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC).

However, the company noted that the phytosanitary of each member state should be technically reasonable and transparent, and should not constitute disguised restrictions on international trade.

Seawin urged the FAO to apply for the publication of the detailed test record of the National Plant Quarantine Service (NPQS) on the rejected fertilizer as well as the scientific basis for explaining the results.

Tamil Nadu on Tuesday condemned the “outrageous attack” against three fishermen from the state by Sri Lankan nationals and asked the Ministry of External Affairs to take up the matter with the neighbouring country.

In a letter to External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister said India cannot continue to be seen as “a mute spectator as the rights of Indian fishermen is repeatedly trampled upon.”

He said three fishermen from Nagapattinam District, Tamil Nadu had ventured out for fishing on January 23 in their FRP boat and were attacked by a group of unidentified Sri Lankan nationals around 9.00 pm, while they were fishing near 16 Nm from Southeast of Vedaranyam coast.

“In this attack, they were robbed of a 300 kg fishing net, GPS & VHF equipment, 30 litres of diesel, and also were physically attacked. The injured fishermen are undergoing treatment in Government Hospital, Vedaranyam, Stalin said.

“It is observed that continuing attacks on innocent Tamil Nadu fishermen by the Sri Lankan Nationals are clearly aimed at keeping the Tamil Nadu fishermen away from their traditional fishing waters of Palk Bay. I am constrained to point out that these incidents of attacks by Sri Lankan nationals are disconcerting,” Stalin told Jaishankar.

The continued attacks have become a matter of life and death for thousands of fisherfolk in Tamil Nadu whose livelihood is under serious threat.

“I request the Government of India to take this up with the Sri Lankan Government in a stern manner such that acts of physical assault and robbing or damaging of assets of Tamil Nadu fishermen does not take place in future. I solicit your urgent action in this regard,” he added.

Foreign Minister GL Peiris says the compilation of a new Constitution is the government’s next crucial task.

The Minister speaking at a media briefing at the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna headquarters this morning said the committee appointed to draft a new Constitution is expected to submit its final report in the days ahead.

Minister Peiris said the President pledged to introduce a new Constitution adding that the current Constitution was formed in 1978 and many changes have taken place in society since.

The Minister also claimed that assumptions should not be made of the compilation of the Constitution being vested with a group of experts, stating that the group comprises President’s Counsels, and professors.

Minister Peiris said the report will then be tabled in Parliament to be reviewed.

The Foreign Minister said a Constitution lasts through generations adding that for it to be a success a common consensus must be reached with all political parties and the public.

Commenting on the next three years of the government, Minister Peiris said while there is sufficient time for the next election, many opportunities persist to fulfil promises cited in the Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour policy statement of the government. Minister Peiris said the next three years must be utilised to the utmost to reap the best results

Tourists visiting Sri Lanka are encouraged to pay hotels in foreign currency instead of converting money into rupees, the country’s Central Bank announced recently.

However, activists allege that this is an attempt to launder money in US currency into Sri Lanka.

Duminda Nagamuwa, the Propaganda Secretary of the Frontline Socialists Party alleges that the Monetary Board decision directly violates all the treaties Sri Lanka has signed internationally to counter money laundering.

He further noted that massive amounts of money with undisclosed means of being generated can flood the Sri Lankan economy via these moves.

The Monetary Board of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka recently issued Rules making it mandatory for hotel service providers to accept payments from persons resident outside Sri Lanka, only in foreign exchange.

These Rules are published in the Gazette Extraordinary No. 2263/41 dated 21 January 2022.

At the same time, hotel service providers may accept payments in Sri Lanka Rupees from persons resident outside Sri Lanka provided they submit original documentary evidence to prove that such Sri Lanka Rupees represent the foreign currency brought into Sri Lanka and converted through a licensed bank or an authorized money changer.

Despite a statement by Co-Cabinet Spokesman Minister Dr. Ramesh Pathirana last week that Sri Lanka will be receiving one million metric tonnes of rice from China as a donation, The Morning reliably learnt that the Chinese Government has rejected the request for such a donation.

Diplomatic sources told The Morning yesterday (23) that China had not agreed to the request by Sri Lanka and that there will be no donation made.

However, when contacted by The Morning yesterday (23), the Trade Ministry’s Media Secretary Mahesh Wickrama said that the said stock of rice is to be received by Sri Lanka following a request made by Trade Minister Dr. Bandula Gunawardana and that there has been no change to that position.

“They agreed to provide the stock of rice. Currently discussions are underway through the Finance Ministry’s Foreign Affairs Unit regarding the type of rice,” he said.

Based on 2016 per capita consumption of 104.5 kg per annum, the annual national rice demand in Sri Lanka is 2.1 million MT and if this donation had been received it would have been the equivalent of a half year’s national demand, which our sources said was unlikely to be agreed to anyway, not to mention the issues around storage and logistics.

Dr. Pathirana announced at the weekly Cabinet decisions press briefing last Tuesday (18) that the consignment is expected to arrive on the island in March and that the donation is being made to mark the 70th anniversary of the Rubber-Rice Pact signed between the two countries in 1952.

Following Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi’s recent visit to Sri Lanka, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Wang Wenbin had reiterated that his country is ready to “carry forward the spirit of the Rubber-Rice Pact characterised by independence, self-reliance, unity and mutual support”.

COLOMBO — As Sri Lanka’s dollar scarcity worsens, a fresh crop of unusual signs has surfaced about spreading shortages of basic goods. “Candles not available due to gas shortage” was one. It was placed at St. Anthony’s church, located in a mixed commercial and residential quarter of Colombo.

The significance of the announcement was not lost on regular worshippers. “Lighting candles is very much part of one’s worship in this church,” said a disappointed mother of two following her visit to the church this week. “I have been visiting this church for over 25 years — never have they not had candles!”

As homes seek light in the wake of rolling power outages, candles are one of a growing list of domestic items that have vanished from the shelves of supermarkets. They also include powdered milk, a favorite addition to a cup of tea, the national drink. Those lucky enough to get access to a few remaining packets share details of their find in whispers, as if discussing contraband items.

The lack of candles is not the only indication of the debt-strapped South Asian nation’s inability to cough up foreign exchange to pay for imported oil to run generators of the state’s energy utility. Government ministers in the ultra-nationalist administration of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa have kept the country on edge about dark nights ahead with public spats over the country’s energy security.

“I have instructed the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation to give 10,000 tons of oil to the Ceylon Electricity Board,” Energy Minister Udaya Gammanpila told reporters on Wednesday, referring to a state utility that uses the Indian Ocean island’s former name. “The CEB needs about 1,500 tons a day and this will be enough for eight days.”

In return, Power Minister Gamini Lokuge has been spinning another message, assuring the public that his officials are committed to uninterrupted power supplies. The country will be free of “power cuts” by the end of the month, he told the local media.

But power outages are in the cards, seasoned observers warned, in the wake of the Rajapaksa government’s decision this week to dip into the country’s dwindling foreign reserves to pay a $500 million sovereign bond, which matured on Jan. 18. That cut off the flow of limited foreign exchange to pay for a long list of imports, including oil, they said.

“We were already short of fuel but we decided to pay the debt,” said Nishan de Mel, executive director of Verite Research, a Colombo-based think tank. “In any kind of tough situation you should share the pain … you shouldn’t frontload the pain on the country — putting more pain on the country and less on the creditors.”

The government’s decision to favor creditors has brought Sri Lanka’s dollar dilemma into sharp relief. Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa, the younger brother of the president, has said the country’s total external debt for 2022 is $6.9 billion, including a $1 billion sovereign bond maturing in July. The country began the year with only $1.6 billion in usable foreign reserves, with an additional $1.5 billion drawn from a swap with the People’s Bank of China, which, commercial banking sources say, cannot be used to pay debts to non-Chinese entities.

A new report by the World Bank suggests stronger headwinds in 2022, challenging the government’s exaggerated growth forecasts. Officials in Colombo have estimated that this year’s gross domestic product growth to hit 5.5% on the back of a revived tourism sector. That comes in the wake of claims that the country will reach an expected 4.5% growth in 2021.

But the World Bank places Sri Lanka as an economic laggard among its South Asian peers, forecasting growth of 2.1% in 2022, down from an expected 3.3% in 2021. This is the worst 2022 growth estimates in the region, which includes India, expected to grow by 8.3%; Bangladesh, to grow by 6.4%; and Nepal, to grow by 3.9%. South Asia’s regional projected growth will accelerate to 7.6% in 2022, the World Bank says in its “Global Economic Prospects” report, released last week.

The early signs that Sri Lanka was running out of dollars first surfaced in mid-2020, when the country was shut out from accessing international capital markets to raise dollars through sovereign bonds to refinance its bulging foreign debt, an estimated $35 billion in the $81 billion economy. It followed a massive tax cut by the newly elected Rajapaksa government in late 2019 to boost the economy, which in turn worsened the budget deficit. That spooked international ratings agencies, according to analysts.

“Ever since the ratings agencies’ downgrade in mid-2020 to CCC the alarm bells should have gone off, because we lost access to the markets so we could not refinance and roll-over the debt,” said Murtaza Jafferjee, managing director of JB Securities, a financial consultancy in Colombo. “The scarcity of dollars will only get worse from now on.”

Several key numbers illustrate that the inflow of foreign exchange is far from stellar. Foreign direct investment, which the Rajapaksa government flagged as an alternative to foreign borrowing, has only trickled in, with the first half of 2021 attracting a mere $398 million, according to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. The country’s Board of Investment had set its sights on securing $1 billion by the end of 2021, an ambitious target by the state’s premier foreign invest agency after a sub-par record of attracting only $550 million in 2020, down from $793 million the previous year.

A host of factors have added to the dollar woes. The country’s persistent trade deficit has been averaging $10 billion annually in recent years; tourism has slumped due to COVID-19; and a government plan to raise $1.5 billion by offering high-value properties in Colombo to foreign investors has struggled to attract interest. “We have never felt such a dollar crunch like this,” remarked a veteran commercial banker. “Importers have been running around the last three months to check which commercial banks have dollars.”

The Port of Colombo affirms that sentiment. Containers loaded with goods are piling up as importers are unable to secure dollars to clear them, according to shipping industry sources. Oil shipments at the country’s busiest harbor are also tied up, waiting for the dollar tap to open.

On the sideline of the national debate on the proposed new constitution, Tamil political parties have written to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking an external intervention for a federal solution to the alleged grievances of Tamil people in the North and East as the final settlement and until then the demand for full implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution enacted after signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement of 1987.

While top South Asian experts are of the view that India has no compulsion for 1987-like intervention in Sri Lanka now and the likely advice from New Delhi to Sri Lankan Tamil politicians would be to;‘Be more practical in your demands without clinging to redundant positions’.

President J R Jayewardene, under pressure accepted the Indian proposal and established Provincial Councils in 1987. However, the fact remains that the experience of Provincial Councils in the past 30 years demonstrated that the full constitutional extent of devolution that is possible by an innovative and flexible approach to the implementation of the 13th Amendment has not been realised. This is mainly due to unrealistic expectations of the 13th Amendment. The Provincial Councils were set up in a rush and the impractical demands such as Police and land powers could not be implemented over the years.

Recipe for disaster

In Sri Lanka, like many other resurgent Nations of the South, there are blatant attempts at political interference in policing. If the Police powers are to be devolved to provinces, there would be nine Police forces in addition to the Central Police, and experts believe, that would be a recipe for disaster.

India has 29 Police services in addition to the Central Government Police, the Reserve Police and few other central law enforcement bodies. As most of the Indian states are bigger than Sri Lanka, it is not possible for a single Central Police Force to maintain law and order, thus there is every justification for the establishment of State Police services. Therefore, each of the 29 States have their own Police forces. The Centre is also allowed to maintain its own Police forces to assist the states with ensuring law and order. It maintains seven central Police forces and some other Police organisations for specialised tasks such as intelligence gathering, investigation, research and record-keeping, and training.

The primary role of Police forces is to uphold and enforce laws, investigate crimes and ensure security for people in the country. In a large and populous country like India, Police forces need to be well-equipped, in terms of personnel, weaponry, forensic, communication and transport support, to perform their role well.

However, the clear cut demarcation of state and central Police functions, could not prevent serious disputes between the State Police and the Indian Central Police. The most recent issue was the breach in security of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Punjab on 5 January.With farmer protesters blocking the road, the PM’s cavalcade was stranded on a flyover in Hussainiwala in Punjab. Calling it “a major lapse in the security of the PM”, the Ministry of Home Affairs had sought a report from the Punjab Government and asked it “to fix responsibility for this lapse and take strict action”.

Centre to take action

Indian Media reported that the Centre is considering action under the Special Protection Group Act against Punjab Police officers following the security breach. Even as the Punjab Government has constituted a high-level committee to probe the incident, sources said the Centre is preparing to take action against erring officials under provisions of the SPG Act. This, they said, could entail summoning the Punjab Police officers responsible to Delhi or instituting a central-level inquiry against them. “What happened on Wednesday in Punjab is a violation of the SPG Act as the State Government failed to follow all protocols set by the SPG for the PM’s movement. Things are being worked out. Action will be taken,” a Government official told Media.

Section 14 of the SPG Act makes the State Government responsible for providing all assistance to the SPG during the PM’s movement.

The provision, titled ‘Assistance to Group’, states: “It shall be the duty of every Ministry and Department of the Central Government or the State Government or the Union Territory Administration, every Indian Mission, every local or other authority or every civil or military authority to act in aid of the Director or any member of the Group whenever called upon to do so in furtherance of the duties and responsibilities assigned to such Director or member.”

If there are nine provincial Police forces in Sri Lanka, one could imagine the chaos in such a situation involving a VVIP travelling from one province to another.

There was another recent instance of a clash between Indian Central Police and State Police of West Bengal. Last year, when a convoy of BJP president

J P Nadda was attacked allegedly by Trinamool workers during a political rally in West Bengal, the Centre had called three IPS officers, who were in charge of Nadda’s security, on central deputation to Delhi. The MHA had then directed West Bengal Police officers to report to Delhi for a deputation with the Government of India. The three officers, however, were not released by the State Government and did not join central deputation as demanded by the MHA.

Devolving Police powers

The MHA had then also sought a report from the Chief Secretary and the DGP of the state and even summoned them to Delhi for a meeting. The state, however, did not send a report and the two officers excused themselves from the meeting on the ground that the State Government was already probing the matter. The developments had precipitated a war of words between the Trinamool and the BJP, with the former calling MHA “vindictive”.

If the Police powers were devolved to provinces in Sri Lanka, there could be major rifts between the central Police and provincial Police, especially during National Elections when opposition parties are in power in a province. In such an event it could lead to even communal clashes if the minority parties holding power in a province attempt to defend the errant provincial Police officers or vice versa.

In India, the opposition parties in the States demand probes by central agencies even on trivial issues and the party in power in the State interprets such demands as one that infringes upon the constitutional rights of the states. When both sides move court, it becomes difficult for the courts of law to decide and it could lead to a serious impasse.

There is a justification for the demand for Tamil speaking Policemen and women for Police stations in the north and east. However, establishing an armed separate Police forces for the provinces could create a security nightmare instead of solving the issue of maintenance of law and order. It is for the constitution drafting bodies to ensure a safe mechanism without rushing through a draft similar to 13th Amendment, which created more problems than finding answers.