Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Sri Lanka?
2015-10-26
Now, see how our new Government conducted itself since it came to power
in January this year. It suspended a number of major infrastructure
development projects; many of which were funded by China. Various
justifications were given, ranging from inflated project cost, corruption and
the other usual culprit, flimsy environmental concerns. Since most of them
were later resumed, some with certain cost reductions, but also sans, some
of the flyovers, lanes and interchanges that were in the initial blueprints,
one would now ask whether all the pre-election brouhaha was political
gimmick. For instance, the Cabinet has now granted green light to the
Kadawatha-Kerawalapitiya section of the Colombo Outer Circular Highway
(OCH) to be built according to an amended Blueprint, according to which,
an inter change has been removed and the length and height of viaducts
were reduced. However, it comes at a 39% reduction of the initial cost.
"If Sri Lanka is to leapfrog from our current development level, we have to
adopt laws in land acquisition, environment or labour etc, to be compatible
with our current economic and social standards. "
The opaque nature of the former regimes handling of the economy and,
especially, mega projects caused reasonable concerns about corruption and
malpractices. However, a large part of the initial reaction was driven by
political considerations and meant to discredit the ex-Presidents role in the
countrys infrastructure drive. Mahinda Rajapaksa can be blamed for many
things, but his regimes track record in revamping the countrys
infrastructure landscape is salutary. Without his pro-active, perhaps corrupt
and obviously nepotist leadership and Chinese loans; some of which were
obtained at a higher interest, we would have stuck in our own infrastructure
gridlock.