The way the Tamil parties in the North are going about the (s)election of mayors and deputy mayors in multiple local government councils after last month’s nation-wide polls, it’s becoming increasingly clear that in the name of ‘policy differences’ they are actually playing out yet another ‘ego war’ that has ruined the community enough through past several years and decades. In focus is former ITAK parliamentarian, M A Sumanthiran, at present the party’s acting general secretary, with ‘sky-high powers’ that includes the authority to forward the list of candidates and mayoral choices to the Election Commission.

That’s an internal affair of one of the many Tamil parties, but which is also still the dominant one, as the parliamentary polls and the present local government elections have proved. But the same cannot be said of the mayoral selection as alliances are being formed outside of the ITAK, if only to keep the party out of reckoning – but not knowing how to go about it.

At the end of the day, the ITAK is the single largest party / group in most local governments, starting with the prestigious Jaffna Municipal Council. It is also the only one to contest on its own without an ally. The party still needs the support of one or many of the other alliances in the mayoral polls. Herein lies the problem.

The ITAK has been stuck with the arrogance of being the single largest Tamil party for a long time now. In the now defunct Tamil National Alliance (TNA), they had insisted on allies contesting on the party’s ‘House’ symbol – and got away with it. In the changed circumstances, where the party is still the single largest one through elections but without majority vote-share, it has stuck to the same stand-point.

In mayoral elections, the ITAK declared early on that it would field candidates wherever the party has won the single-largest seat-share. Now, the Sumanthiran faction, with acting party president C V K Sivagnanam as the front, has struck a deal with former minister Douglas Devananda’s EPDP, where the latter would back the former for mayoralty in many local government councils.

This is not the first time that Douglas and the EPDP has done it. The last time too, when the TNA was intact and yet could not muster the numbers in councils like that in Jaffna, the EPDP offered support, when approached. It was the same this time, too.

Behind the back

The irony of it all then, but not now, is that the ITAK-TNA used to consider Douglas D as a ‘traitor’ to the cause, as branded by the LTTE in its time. This time round, with the decision reached, faction leader and parliamentarian Sritharan has recalled how the ITAK leadership had decided to work with other ‘Tamil nationalist’ parties in mayoral elections – but not with ‘traitors’.

Obviously, Sritharan did not notice this distinction the last time round, when a tall leader like the late Sampanthan was still at the helm. Nor did he have problems with Sumanthiran affixing his signature to the EC letter, asking for the allocation of the ITAK’s ‘House’ symbol for him in the parliamentary elections from Kilinochchi last year.

This time round, however, Sritharan sort of questioned Sumanthiran’s authority in the matter when he discovered that the Sivagnanam-Sumanthiran duo, if not the latter, all by himself, was going ahead with the choice of party mayors in his Kilinochchi district, without consulting him, without involving him. Worse still for Sritharan, party councillors in multiple local councils in Kilinochchi seemed to indicate that they would deal with Sumanthiran without him if that is what it takes to get their names forwarded to the EC.

It is sad that Sritharan’s election as party president in an open organisational poll against Sumanthiran is stuck in the courts, and Sumanthiran is still now in charge of the party affairs. It is not known why Sritharan’s legal team is not urging the court to fast-track the party elections. But then, any challenge to the status quo could well lead to the EC possibly freezing the ITAK name and title and also the ‘House’ symbol. Traditional party voters would not forgive those that had caused it.

Family fiefdom

If this in the internal dynamics within the dominant ITAK still, outside of the party there are others like parliamentarian Gajendra Kumar Ponnambalam, for whom the pre-Independence Tamil Congress. For him, the party is the third-generation family fiefdom, from the days of his grandfather C G Ponnambalam and father Kumar Ponnambalam.

At one-level, Gajan Ponnambalam seems to want all Tamil parties, including possibly the ITAK, to come under the Tamil Congress umbrella. At another, and more identifiable level, he seems wanting to lord over Tamil politics, especially in the North, the same way Sumanthiran too seems wanting to. Given the inherent limitations however, Sumanthiran seems less ambitious, at least for now, and will want to settle for control over the ITAK. That is not the case with Gajan Ponnambalam, or so it seems.

All of it means that Sumanthiran is at the target of every other Tamil leader wanting to make a name and fame for himself – whether Sritharan from within the ITAK or Gajan Ponnambalam and the rest, from outside. In this background, the Tamil Congress has tied up with what is known as the ‘Democratic Tamil Front’, which is a product of the forgotten TNA split. The ITAK certainly was the cause, and Sumanthiran possibly was.

Ask erstwhile ITAK allies in the now-defunct TNA and they would tell you how under the late Samapanthan, the former treated them as less than second-class citizens in decision-making, whether political or electoral. The formal split occurred two-plus years ago when Sumanthiran mouthed the ITAK idea for TNA partners to contest the local council elections individually, so that each of them could corner a few seats, and unite to claim mayoralty in a vast majority of local councils in the Tamil areas.

It did not find favour at the time, and the allies were convinced that it was a shrewd ways to get rid of them once and for all. Yet, when the local council elections were postponed then and were conducted last month, Sumanthiran’s predictions alone came true. Only that the breakaway allies under a new nomenclature, ‘Democratic Tamil Front’, have ended up signing up with the Tamil Congress and Gajan Ponnambalam.

Unyielding, unbending

It was unthinking to the point of outright arrogance that the ITAK has continued to insist on not sharing mayoralty with prospective post-poll allies in councils where they had come on the top. Those allies once seemed to include not only the Democratic Tamil Front but also the Tamil Congress, with whom the Sivagnanam-Sumanthiran duo held talks.

Because the ITAK was unyielding and unbending, the other two signed up for a marriage of convenience, but Gajan called it a ‘policy-based alliance’, or ‘kolkai koottani’ in Tamil. It’s anything but what it’s supposed to be. It’s as opportunistic as any other, as the purpose was to capture as many councils as possible against whatever alliance that ITAK may form or formulate.

All is fair in love, war and electoral politics, yes. But it’s laughable for multiple parties from within the Congress-led front and the Democratic Front signing up for a ‘kolkai koottani’ without mutual discussions and extensive internal debates. And the ‘policy’ that the Congress is insisting on, and on which the rest have signed up without giving it a second thought – because they don’t intend sticking to it either way – is all that the Tamil parties have been saying all along but without much success.

The only thing is that under Sumanthiran, the ITAK may not agree to give up on the demand for full implementation of the 13-A even while moving towards ‘federalism’, the one-point agenda of the Congress, which diluted its cause from the previous idea of ‘confederation’. It is an irony that the new-found Democratic Front allies of the Congress alone had initiated an all-party Tamil leaders’ missive to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi two years back, for New Delhi to press the then Ranil Wickremesinghe dispensation to ensure full implementation of 13-A, obtained as far back as 1987 through Indian intervention and participation.

Facing the electorate

It is in this background, the Tamil parties will have to face the long-delayed Provincial Council elections, whenever held. A lot will depend on the ruling JVP-NPP’s willingness to face the electorate elsewhere after witnessing a clear fall in their vote-share from the high 61 per cent in the parliamentary elections to 43 per cent in the local government elections – the same figure as President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s vote-share when he was elected, again last year.

The same applies to the Tamil areas, where the voter anger over the unending personality clashes through the past months and years had frustrated the new-generation voters in particular that they preferred the centre-left JVP-NPP, once opposed to ‘Tamil nationalism’ and still not supportive of the cause. The ruling combine obtained the highest vote-share and seat-share in the Tamil Northern Province, starting with the prestigious Jaffna electoral district.

If it had sobered the Tamil voters to settle for the Tamil parties in the local government elections, the post-poll behaviour of their political leaderships may push the voter back into the waiting hands of the JVP combine during the PC polls. Or, else more Tamil voters may stay at home than during the parliamentary elections and local government polls, than used to be the case in the past – thus sending out a further message, which however may not be lost on their leaderships.

Ethnic predators

Fifteen years after the one-sided end of the ethnic war, it’s ‘future imperfect’ for the Tamils of Sri Lanka. Even while unearthing new evidence to ‘Sinahala majoritarianism’, old and new, their lives and thoughts are sought to be controlled by their own polity and leaders. But that too is slowly changing.

The agitated media coverage of the discovery of human skeletons from court-ordered excavations in Semmani, to the ‘un-kept promise’ of President Anura Dissanayake to de-notify the government take-over of private Tamil lands under an archaic law passed close to a century ago, there are newer concerns adding to the old – war crimes probe, accountability issues and return of Tamil lands in military ‘occupation’.

There is not enough enthusiasm, especially among the future generations about the past sins of the ethnic predators from the other Sinhala side. This has caused a piquant situation and raised a poignant question on where from here for the Sri Lankan Tamils. The question strikes them in the face. But there is none among them to find an honest and enforceable response.

(The writer is a Chennai-based Policy Analyst & Political Commentator. Email: sathiyam54@nsathiyamoorthy.com)

Sri Lanka Customs today (8 June) strongly denied allegations that a batch of 323 shipping containers was released without inspection under suspicious circumstances, stating that the cargo consisted solely of industrial goods and raw materials as declared by importers.

At a special press briefing held in Colombo, Customs Media Spokesperson and Additional Director General Seevali Arukgoda said there was no evidence to suggest the containers held anything illegal. “These containers did not contain weapons, drugs, or gold. We thoroughly checked the import documents before release,” he asserted.

The controversy centres around the release of 371 containers on 18 January 2025, of which 309 were cleared through committee approval, and 62 were auto-released by the Customs database. Customs confirmed it has detailed records on all 180 importers involved, including company directors, agents, and container numbers.

Arukgoda explained that the released cargo included plastics, yarn, chemicals, automobile spare parts, animal feed, machinery, pesticides, cement, iron pipes, fertilisers, and timber—goods essential for local industries. Most containers originated from India and China, along with others from Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Switzerland, South Korea, and the UAE.

Responding to public speculation and political accusations, Arukgoda said: “We have launched a post-clearance audit to verify the contents. The process is being overseen by the Post-Clearance Department, and a high-level committee appointed by the Finance Ministry Secretary is also conducting an investigation.”

He further assured that there was no external interference in the clearance process. “We have provided all relevant data to the Criminal Investigation Department. I can say with absolute certainty that no third party influenced the decisions.”

Addressing the broader practice of cargo clearance, Arukgoda clarified that around 60% of imported shipments are routinely released without physical inspection under a risk-based assessment system. “This is not a new practice,” he said. “Our decisions are guided by risk management protocols, not randomness.”

Customs reiterated its commitment to transparency and cooperation with ongoing investigations, aiming to restore public confidence amid rising scrutiny.

Sri Lanka’s gross foreign reserves dropped 42 million US dollars to 6,284 million US dollars, below the level seen in October 2024, amid rising concerns that another cycle of policy errors is starting.

Sri Lanka’s gross official reserves hit 6,472 million dollars in October 2024, amid warnings of money printing, as large volumes of excess liquidity were dumped into the banking system to mis-target interbank call money rates.

In December and January, the central bank sold dollars on a net basis, as printed money was used for private credit, driving up imports.

In January private credit contracted, and the central bank bought dollars on a net basis.

Policy rate were cut in May 2022, though data shows that interbank rates were ‘signalled’ up, slightly with excess liquidity from dollar purchases boosting interbank liquidity without money being printed, and three month bill yields falling below the bureaucratically controlled rate.

Sri Lanka has had bad consequences from late cycle ‘rate cuts’ in the past.

Analysts have warned that beliefs that rates can be cut or that money can be printed through open market operations are spurious monetary doctrines that emerged in the ‘age of inflation’ and a central bank is just a ‘bank of issue’ subject to laws of nature discovered by classical economists.

Due to the central banks flawed operating frameworks which reject economics (current as well as in the past) people have to suffer exchange and import controls.

Many also leave the country of their birth to stable Middle Eastern countries where macro-economists cannot control short or long term rates and employment is many times their permanent resident population.

By February 2024, gross official reserves were down to 6,086 but private credit eased and the central bank bought dollars. An IMF tranche also came and foreign reserves went up to 6.5 billion US dollars.

After the IMF tranches reserves started to go down again.

Unless money is printed, there will not be immediate forex shortages (the central bank will not have to spend reserves to finance current outflows like imports to stop the rupee from falling from the newly created liquidity) but reserve collections may not be sufficient to repay debt, if interest rates are too low, even if some dollars are bought from the market.

The central bank itself has to settle dollar loans to India borrowed to effectively finance imports when money was printed to artificially boost credit in the run up the default.

As a result, the interest rate structure is dictated by the need to repay debt (by raising deposits from the domestic banking system) and IMF reserve targets and not historical statistical formulae as believed in countries that go to the IMF again and again and default (also again and again once it starts).

The Finance Ministry does not independently buy dollars from the market from rupees raised by Treasury bill sales, and is a helpless prisoner depending on central bank deflationary policy to collect reserves, EN’s economic columnist Bellwether says.

Meanwhile with the central bank running of Treasury bills bought during the crisis (they were converted to step down securities) the ability run deflationary policy is limited to coupon payments coming in, unless action is taken to sell them down.

Failing to reach reserve targets tends to unsettle foreign investors and rating agencies.

Sri Lanka’s central bank is now pursuing a so-called single policy rate involving narrowly controlling a mid-corridor rate, which critics have showed contributed to rapid-fire peacetime currency crises since the end of a 30-year war.

Before open market operations and discretionary monetary policy, external crises were limited money printed in desperation due to war, not due deliberate actions taken to follow follow a statistical doctrine which undermines the working of a credit system.

The recent controversy surrounding the release of a financial fraud convict from Anuradhapura Prison under the Presidential Pardon for Vesak Poya Day has revealed a serious irregularity: the convict’s name was not included in the official list of pardoned prisoners approved by the President, the President’s Media Division (PMD) confirmed in a statement.

Amid widespread public outrage, the PMD stated that the Presidential Secretariat has launched an inquiry after reports emerged that D.H. Athula Thilakarathna was released under the 2025 Vesak Presidential pardon without proper authorization.

According to Article 34(1) of the Constitution, the President has the authority to grant pardons to selected prisoners. Prison authorities prepare a list of eligible inmates, which is reviewed by the Ministry of Justice before being forwarded to the Presidential Secretariat for final approval.

The official list of 388 prisoners approved for pardon, submitted by the Commissioner General of Prisons on 6 May 2025, did not include the name of Athula Thilakarathna, who was serving a sentence for financial fraud. This omission has raised serious concerns about the legality and transparency of his release.

In response, the Presidential Secretariat lodged a formal complaint with the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on 6 June, demanding a special investigation into the unauthorized release under the guise of the presidential pardon.

Authorities have pledged a thorough and transparent investigation, promising disciplinary action against any officials found responsible for this breach of protocol.

The proposed $3.7 million oil refinery to be built by China’s Sinopec in Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port is facing significant delays over multiple issues like dispute over equity structure, tax concessions, market access, and allocation of land for the project.

The inland port is built in a natural harbour near the town of Hambantota in the district of the same name on the southeastern coast of Sri Lanka, located 250 kilometres from Colombo. Unable to repay its debt, Sri Lanka gave China a controlling equity stake and a 99-year lease for Hambantota port, which it handed over in December 2017.

In the pact signed on January 16, 2025, during the visit of Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to Beijing from January 14 to 17 following his visit to India in December 2024, China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, or Sinopec, the world’s biggest refinery, agreed to expand its economic and energy footprints by building a massive oil refinery in Hambantota.

The agreement promised a facility capable of processing 2,00,000 barrels of crude oil per day. Incidentally, the Sri Lankan government had originally envisioned a 1,00,000 barrels per day refinery when Expressions of Interest (EoI) were called. While hailed by Sri Lankan officials as a landmark foreign investment, the deal had raised deep concerns about sovereignty, environmental integrity, and long-term economic independence.

This expansion had raised red flags with China controlling a major deep-water port and a potential mega refinery. However, the project in Sri Lanka is considered a top priority at Sinopec. The refinery is planned adjacent to the Hambantota port that China Merchant Port Holdings controls, on a 99-year lease.

The refinery project in Sri Lanka is a move by the top Chinese and global refiner to secure more markets overseas. The Sinopec investment was cleared in November 2023 during the term of Dissanayake’s predecessor, Ranil Wickremesinghe. Under debt-trap diplomacy, China woos foreign leaders and signs deals, which are dual-use in nature.

The original Request for Proposal (RFP) had stipulated foreign equity to be capped at 20 per cent and mandated 80 per cent of the projected output per day to be earmarked for exports. However, Sinopec is seeking a larger equity share and dilution of the 80 per cent export obligation to enable it to gain wider access to the domestic market in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka authorities have, till now, ruled out any changes in the RFP. Separately, the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) has raised concerns that unrestricted market access for Sinopec could severely disrupt the petroleum sector in Sri Lanka and adversely affect energy security.

The Sri Lankan government had initially offered 500 acres of land for the project in Arabokka, Hambantota, and Sinopec subsequently requested an additional 200 acres of land just 3.5 kilometres from the Chinese-controlled port.

The authorities concerned are yet to decide on the quantum of land to be allocated, and there is also the related issue of lease duration for the land to be allocated. Hence, no formal agreement has been reached in this regard. Meanwhile, the Central Environment Authority (CEA) had issued the terms of reference to Sinopec to carry out an environmental impact study and submit the report to it.

Source: IANS

Building on the success of its inaugural initiative, Sinopec, a global energy leader, is set to launch the second phase of its Energy Talent Growth (ETG) Program in Sri Lanka this year.

First introduced in 2024, the program has already conducted 18 training sessions for nearly 150 station managers across all 9 provinces, reflecting Sinopec’s long-term commitment to developing a high-performing, future-ready workforce within the country’s energy sector.

The ETG Program is designed to equip front-line station staff with advanced technical knowledge, operational excellence and international best practices. In 2024, 18 top-performing managers from Sinopec’s network in Sri Lanka participated in an intensive development journey in Colombo and Beijing, China combining theoretical learning, practical site visits, strategic capability-building, and Sinopec’s global management ethos. The program also included rigorous assessments to benchmark competencies against international best practices.

“This experience has truly re-energized us and strengthened our commitment to delivering even better service. It wasn’t just a great learning opportunity for me, but also for my colleagues at the station. We’re hopeful we’ll have the chance to return and build on what we’ve learned,” said Akila Fernando, Manager of the Sinopec A.D.A. Francis Appuhamy Filling Station in Marawila and one of the top-performing participants in the training program.

Commenting on the program in Beijing, the Sri Lankan Ambassador to China, Hon. Majintha Jayesinghe, stated “These programs reflect Sinopec’s commitment to not only empowering and enhancing the skills of Sri Lankan professionals, but also to strengthening Sri Lanka’s energy sector”.

Taking Dilly Fuelling Station in Nawala – the new benchmark of Sinopec Filling Station as an example, the changes are modest but tangible. With nearly 10% of daily visitors using restroom facilities at Sinopec stations, these changes are especially important in ensuring a clean, comfortable and dignified experience for customers.

Aligned with the newly launched Clean Sri Lanka Sinopec Action Plan, the ETG Program continues to drive front-line excellence by focusing on operational performance, customer-centric service and raises station managers’ awareness of safety, cleanliness and community-friendly practices.