When truth becomes a casualty

Tuesday 14th June, 2022

Chairman of the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) M. M. C. Ferdinando has resigned over his recent statement, before the COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises), that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had pressured President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to award the Mannar wind power project contract to India’s Adani Group. Ferdinando said President Rajapaksa had, after a meeting, told him that the latter was under pressure from Modi to ensure that Adani clinched the deal. But the President promptly denied his claim. (In this country, people do not believe anything until it is denied!)

There was absolutely no need for Ferdinando to lie before the COPE, but now he tells us that he mentioned the Indian Prime Minister’s name by mistake due to ‘unexpected pressure and emotions’ at the COPE meeting. But there was no hostile environment at the COPE meeting, as evident from the video footage of the event, and Ferdinando looked composed. In fact, when he revealed what the President had told him, he even smirked. It was obvious that he made the statement at issue in good faith in a bid to bolster his argument that the power plant project was a government-to-government one because the Indian Prime Minister himself had evinced a keen interest therein. But he did not realise the diplomatic and political ramifications of his statement.

Ferdinando’s disclosure about PM Modi having brought pressure to bear on President Rajapaksa on behalf of Adani has provided the Indian Opposition with ammunition. Gautam Adani is known as Modi’s Rockefeller, and the BJP government stands accused of going out of its way to help him. Modi has drawn heavy flak from the Congress for pushing for the wind power project on behalf of Adani. So, it is only natural that President Rajapaksa had to issue a rebuttal and the CEB Chief had to retract his statement and resign.

The issue of alleged Indian pressure over the wind power project cannot be considered closed simply because Ferdinando has withdrawn his statement. If one goes by his claim that his statement before the COPE was not true, then one can argue that he has violated parliamentary privileges by making a false claim to mislead the watchdog committee. More importantly, the peg on which he hung his argument that the Adani power project was a government-to-government deal was that according to President Rajapaksa, PM Modi had pushed for it. If Ferdinando has lied before the COPE, then the question is whether the project could be considered a government-to-government one.

When the Hambantota harbour was handed over to China on a 99-year lease, The New York Times said Beijing had leveraged its loans to make Sri Lanka cough up a port, of all things. What will the critics of Sri Lanka’s increasing dependence on India for loans say? Will they say India has got Sri Lanka to cough up a wind power project contract?

It will be interesting to see the reaction of the COPE to the outgoing CEB Chairman’s self-contradiction. Will it raise a privilege issue and call for action against Ferdinando? Or, will it just forget about it lest it should open a can of worms for both President Rajapaksa and PM Modi?

It is not difficult to get at the truth anent Ferdinando’s statement in question. He informed the COPE that he had told the President that the award of the contract for the wind power project was not under the purview of the CEB and it had to be handled by the Board of Investment; subsequently he had written to the Finance Ministry about what the President had told him and asked it to take follow-up action. This letter must be in the Finance Ministry if it has not been made to disappear.