The Eastern Container Terminal (ECT) Development work has been launched at the Colombo Port today under the patronage of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The Sri Lanka Ports Authority said that work on the terminal is expected to be completed by 2024.

India had earlier offered to develop the strategic ECT with Japan but the current Government had instead decided to offer the West Terminal to India.

Cabinet approval was later granted to develop the Eastern Container Terminal in stages as a terminal totally operated by the Sri Lanka Ports Authority.

Accordingly, international competitive bids had been invited for Phase II of the Eastern Container Terminal at the Colombo Port.

China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd (CHEC) was picked to develop Phase II of the Colombo Port Eastern Container Terminal.

With the planned construction beginning today, the length of the Eastern Terminal will increase to 1,320 meters and has been scheduled to be completed in July 2024.

Secretary to the Ministry of Ports, U. D. C. Jayalal said the project costs US$ 500 million.

The first phase of the terminal is scheduled to be completed on the 4th of July next year and the terminal will span over 600 meters.

In the first phase, 6 ship-to-shore cranes and 20 rail-mounted gantry (RMG) cranes will be installed at the Eastern Terminal.

Once completed, the terminal will consist of 12 giant cranes and 40 normal cranes.

Speaking at the event Sri Lanka’s Minister of Ports and Shipping Rohitha Abeygunawardena said, construction of the West Terminal will begin in February 2022 as a joint venture with the private sector and the operational capacity is expected to increase drastically.

The minister noted that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will have the honour of uplifting the Port of Colombo to world number 13 from its current position of 23.

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa responding to concerns surrounding such development projects said that most governments in the past back-peddled at times of economic crisis and the next 3 years are vital for the current government..

Premier Mahinda Rajapaksa noted that this Government never thought of making itself feel comfortable and a Government that thinks of its own benefit will not give the public concessions worth US$ 650 million.

With a 420 metre quay wall built with US$ 100 million investment, SLPA is currently operating the ECT using the cranes ordered for Jaya Container Terminal (JCT)-5. 

However, SLPA Chairman Capt. Nihal Keppetipola noted that these cranes will be replaced with cranes ordered for the ECT. 

 Last November, Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Co. Ltd, a unit of China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) won the international tender to supply 12 ship-to-shore cranes and 40 automated rail mounted gantry cranes for 
the ECT. 

 According to Capt. Keppetipola, the cost of the required equipment for the terminal is estimated at US$ 300 million.

The civil construction work of the ECT was awarded to a joint venture between Access Engineering PLC (AEL) and China Harbour Engineering, another unit of CCC. 

The cost of civil construction is estimated at US$ 200 million, which is to be directly financed with SLPA funds. In addition, US$ 20 million will be invested in a terminal operation system.

Once the ECT becomes fully operational in 2024, Minister Abeygunawardena highlighted that Port of Colombo’s capacity will be increased to handle 10.5 million TEUs from the current seven million TEUs, becoming the 13th busiest container port in the world.

Commenting on potential competition arising from China Merchant Group-managed Hambantota Port, Capt. Keppetipola dismissed such claims as unrealistic. 

The authority  also has  plans to develop container terminal at a later stage, but they will never compete with the Port of Colombo as it doesn’t make sense to have two competing hubs in the close vicinity,” he stressed.

Meanwhile, Minister Abeygunawardena announced that the construction of West Container Terminal (WCT) is scheduled to commence in February this year.  India’s Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (APSEZ) last year signed the build-operate-transfer (BOT) agreement to develop and operate WCT with its local partner John Keells Holdings (JKH) and SLPA, with an investment of US$ 700 million.

With the WCT coming into operation as the third deep-water terminal, the Port of Colombo’s capacity is set to increase by another 3.5 million TEUs. 

In addition, the SLPA also plans to develop Colombo North Port, to the north of Port of Colombo, spreading from the Kelani River in the Modara area, up to the existing northern breakwater of the Colombo Port. The SLPA in 2020 sign an agreement with AECOM Infrastructure & Environment UK Limited to conduct a feasibility study for this.

Minister Abeygunawardena noted that the government plans to complete the construction of Colombo North Port by end of 2035 adding another three terminals and increasing the capacity of Port of Colombo to 30-35 million TEUs and possibly placing the Port of Colombo among top five ports in the world.  

“Sri Lanka is in an ideal place to become the hub of South-East Asia, being the feeder nerve centre for South East Asia. 

No shipping line will deviate from the East-West route due to various operational costs and shipping costs. We are now getting on to the correct track,” Capt. Keppetipola added.

SriLankan Airlines has posted a company profit of US$ 9.25 million and a group profit of $ 10.66 million for December 2021, which is the first profitable month for the Airline since the onset of the Pandemic in early 2020, airline sources said. 

The revenues are up by almost 200 percent compared with the same period last year and have reached over 80 percent of the pre-pandemic level. 

Further, the Airline reports a profit of$ 11.43 million for December 2021 at Air Transportation level, which is the highest recorded profit from Air Transportation in over 20 years.

“The sacrifices made by all staff members have paved the way for a positive start for the New Year. 

During the past two years, the national carrier implemented multifaceted initiatives to reduce operational costs, for which each and every employee of the SriLankan family contributed, and the airline reaping the benefits of these efforts today. 

The future, however, remains extremely challenging with the spread of the new variant of the virus and we will continue to monitor the situation closely and take necessary action to ensure that the momentum achieved in December continues,” Ashok Pathirage, Chairman of SriLankan Airlines said.

SriLankan operated close to 800 flights during the month and carried a total of 228,203 passengers – in excess of 13 times the number of passengers carried in December 2020. Moreover, SriLankan uplifted a total of 7,877 metric tons of cargo, which is a 147 percent  increase from December 2020.

SriLankan Airlines has been fraught with challenges over the past three years starting with the Easter Sunday attacks in April 2019 that led to a decline in tourist arrivals in the immediate aftermath, followed by the onset of the pandemic in the first quarter of 2020, which is now entering into its third year.

However, as the national carrier, SriLankan Airlines rose to the occasion, by deploying resources to fly stranded Sri Lankans home from various parts of the world, including pilgrims from India and students stranded in various parts of the world including from COVID-19 stricken Wuhan in China.  

Since then, the Airline has not only engaged in ferrying Sri Lankans, but also stepped up to assist citizens of other countries return home. 

SriLankan also adapted its strategy with a renewed focus on cargo operations which was a boost for exports and air transportation of vital medical supplies, vaccinations and other commercial cargo across borders as global passenger air travel came to a virtual halt. 

Thus, the Airline managed to keep its fleet in operation while many other airlines grounded most of their aircraft.

Despite the difficulties of the pandemic, SriLankan has also maintained its commitment to support the national economy, bringing tourism, connecting business, carrying freight and earning foreign exchange. 

In the past year, SriLankan launched operations to several new destinations including to Seoul; Nairobi; Moscow; Paris; and Kathmandu as the pandemic showed signs of slowing and borders gradually opened.

The new destinations were promoted through marketing initiatives in the respective markets, including by participating in international tourism trade fairs such as IFTM Top Resa in Paris and OTDYKH LEISURE in Moscow.  

SriLankan also became the first airline to conduct Familiarization Tours (FAM) for travel trade journalists based in Russia, France and India last year. 

The country’s tourist arrivals remarkably topped 44,000 in November 2021 as a result of these initiatives.

As these positive numbers ring in the New Year for SriLankan, the Airline hopes to continue the momentum by pressing forward with a renewed energy and focus

By Basil Fernando

A fake Constitution alters the rules of logic that are the basic foundations of a good constitution. The change of logic leads to irrationality. The spread of irrationality into public institutions creates rotten systems within such public institutions. Where the public institutions go rotten, every aspect of social life comes into severe problems.

Gradually, all systems break down. Then unmanageable crises develop within the society. These crises in turn create so much demoralisation within the people who become the sufferers and victims of these institutions that they withdraw their co-operation from these public institutions. With that, not only these public institutions but even the society becomes unable to function. The dysfunctionality of public institutions which are unable to create public co-operation leads to failed states. Such is the situation of Sri Lanka today.

It is quite relevant to discuss the impact of fake constitutions at the present moment because the discussions about adopting a Government-sponsored draft of a Constitution has provoked a debate within the society about the very purpose and the meaning of the making of a Constitution.

Can an already existing fake Constitution provide the basis within which a genuine and rational Constitution can be created? That is the core of the whole issue about Constitution-making in Sri Lanka.

The 1978 Constitution is a fake Constitution. It talks about the Constitution of a republic. However, it violates the most basic principle of a republic. Thomas Paine, the great American philosopher and writer whose writings played an enormously influential role during the time of the making of the American Constitution, summed up the basic idea of a republic: In England, the king is the law whereas in the US, the law is the king. What makes a republic is the supremacy given to the law above the ruler. If the ruler is not subjected to the law, then there cannot be a republic.

Thus, calling Sri Lanka a republic is a misnomer because in Sri Lanka, it is not the law that is the king but it is the Executive President that is the law. When the head of the state, whether it be an Executive President or a Prime Minister, dictates the law, then it cannot be a republic at all. When such a place is called a republic while basically operating on the principles on which a monarchy is based, it may provide some kind of a title to the head of the state which sounds modern. However, there is nothing modern about the Sri Lankan Constitution. It is based on a primitive principle of dictating the terms under which the society should live by a single person called the ruler.

The basis of irrationality that is inherent in the 1978 Constitution is based on this contradiction of calling itself a republic while operating on the principles which are opposed to a republic. This change in the major premise of a system of governance changes all the other premises and the conclusions to be like that. Thus, from a rational point of view, the whole of the public system within which Sri Lanka operates is within an illogical framework. Such an illogical framework creates all the consequences which are mentioned earlier in this article.

However, this logic lives not only as an abstraction. Real institutions begin to malfunction to an extent that the country’s system of the regulatory framework of finance breaks down. The nerve system of any economy is the system by which financial institutions are managed in a country. When the normal principles that govern such managements are abandoned in favour of irrational interferences, violative of the law, then, the very financial structure breaks down.

This exposes the narrowness of some who claim that Sri Lanka’s problems are only economic problems and that the questions of the Constitution are not relevant problems at the moment. That is an irrational understanding of how an economy works. An economy, like any other feat of human activity, operates on logical frameworks. When the basic premises of a logical framework are removed, then irrationality enters into the entire system. The consequences of that irrationality can now be seen in the country. The prediction is that in the coming months, these will become even worse and that life in the country may become a nightmare. The possibilities of even food shortages have been predicted. Already, the spread of malnutrition in a significant portion of the population is a fact.

Putting a Humpty Dumpty back together again is considered usually an impossible task. That is the way that people have begun to perceive the Sri Lankan situation. However, there is a way to put the Humpty Dumpty back together again and to get the public institutions of the nation to function. That is why it should be a return to reason. Returning to reason is a primary requirement of returning to a law based society that is a republic.

Today’s task is to recreate a republic. By following the 1978 Constitution, a republic which rejects the basic notion of a republic, it is not possible to return to a republic.

The first step needs to be the undoing of this fake Constitution and to replace it with a Constitution within the democratic framework which could operate under the principles of the rule of law.
However, it is impossible to think that the Parliament in its present form will want to or is capable of producing anything other than a Constitution that is based on the same principles as the fake Constitution of 1978.

That is the reason why there is a demand today for the Constitution making to be done by a constitutional convention that is a convention consisting of persons who are selected mainly for the purpose of the making of the constitution. The selectors are the people. What a constitutional convention would do is to bring back the people’s participation into constitution making so that the basic principles of a rational Government could be restored. That will pave the way to make a beginning in order to change the ground realities that exist in the country.

However, the next question is how to bring about that constitutional convention. This could be done by way of a referendum at which the people vote for the manner in which the Constitution should be made and who should constitute the constitutional convention. Naturally, people would want the constitutional convention to be represented by persons who will faithfully contribute to create a kind of law based system within which the people themselves are protected. By people, it means everyone in Sri Lanka belonging to various sectors of the society, the workers, peasants, entrepreneurs, professionals and all. They need to have a direct say in the making of a Constitution.

To continue with the fake Constitution that exists now, is to look for a future within which everything will be much worse than the way they exist even now. A constitutional convention brought about by a referendum is necessary for the survival of Sri Lanka as a law based and rational society.