By Ifham Nizam

Thirty three orgnisations yesterday joined hands urging the government to `Cancel Illegitimate Debt of Sri Lanka’, obviously referring to borrowings from China and other creditors.

Representatives hinted that due to whims and fancies of some political giants, the Central Bank top brass is also facing numerous pressures from all quarters.

Senior Environmental Scientist Hemantha Withanage stressed that transparency is of paramount importance when taking loans. At least when taking such loans, it should be discussed in parliament.

However, he said that successive governments had failed and often been on the path of illegitimate debt, criminal debt or unfair debts.

He said that although all the Debt, Sri Lanka owes is taken by the democratically elected governments, they may have not spent in a transparent way.

Some of the projects implemented with loans have created many social and environmental impacts. Some projects have not achieved any ground work even though money is borrowed and spent or Costs are exaggerated, he added.

“These loans would do nothing for the development or progress of the country,” he told a media briefing yesterday in Colombo citing many examples, particularly how four billion rupees were allocated for a Chinese company with regard to the Nilwala and Gin Ganga Project.

He said that two billion rupees have gone missing according to the Auditor General’s report on the Lotus Tower Project.

Withanage also said that the current crisis in Sri Lanka is food, fuel, medicine and other essentials

causing severe scarcity of materials, thereby pushing more people into deep poverty.

He said that for some nine million of Sri Lanka’s population getting food and drink every day is becoming impossible.

“The worst consequences of the current economic crisis and solutions to it, the poorest sections of the country have to experience. Those people will be more affected by the plans presented by the government. We are afraid of being burdened with unbearable and illegitimate (illegal) debt,

Claiming to have the cooperation of the people of all the other countries, the people of Sri Lanka  has designated tomorrow as the protest day for “Illegitimate Debt”, they said

Thilak Kariyawasam of FIAN Sri Lanka said that Colombo Port City is a similar questionable  project in Sri Lanka which is claimed to be  developed as a financial hub. The land reclamation stage has been completed.

Colombo Port city construction was begun arbitrarily  without having a genuine Environmental Impact Assessment study or feasibility study and against the public opinion.

“Although they have done some EIA studies at a later stage, the intention was only to justify the ongoing construction. Relevant government agencies have denied access to the Tri Party agreement between China and Sri Lanka to date,” he added.

Withanage also said that the project cost is estimated at USD 1.35 billion, and the construction was started in 2012 by China Harbour Corporation and the proposed year of completion is 2045.

The project used almost USD 4 billion worth of sea sand and rocks that comes from Sri Lanka’s natural resources free of charge.

According to the auditor General’s report “A sum of Rs. 625,731,680 had been deprived of to the Bureau due to the failure in obtaining the fee of Rs. 68,000,000 relating to the license no. IML/A/HO/8328 dated 16 September 2014 issued to the Sri Lanka Ports Authority for mining sea sand for the Port City and failure to taking action to recover the royalty of Rs. 557,731,680 recoverable for 3,485,823 cubes of sea sand mined prior to the year 2016, recoverable in terms of Section 35 and 44 of the Mines and Minerals Act, No.33 of 1992.

Movement of Land and Agriculture Reforms (MONLAR) Executive Director Chinthana Rajapakse, activist Herman Kumara of the National Fisheries Cooperation (NAFSO), and Law and Society Trust (LST) Sadun Tudugala also spoke