Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe this week criticised the proposed Colombo Port City Project (CPCP), saying the only beneficiary of this project will be the Chinese company constructing it, and a select group of people. The project which is to be carried out under the supervision of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) and the Board of Investment (BOI), has come in for severe criticism from the Opposition, due to the Government’s failure to reveal its full details to the country and to Parliament.
23-02-2014
Sunday times
Opposition United National Party (UNP) Leader Ranil Wickremsinghe said today the new government, which would be formed by the joint opposition after the current regime was defeated at the January 8 elections, would scrap the Colombo Port City Project.
Mr. Wickremesinghe told tourist industry leaders who met him today that the project would be scrapped because it would end up destroying the coastal belt from Negombo to Beruwala.
16-12-2014
Daily mirror
The Colombo Port City will have more powers than slain LTTE leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran when he was in control of parts of the North if the Colombo Port City Economic Commission Bill is approved, former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said.
Prabakaran had control of a major portion of the North and East when Wickremesinghe was Prime Minister between 2001–2004.
In an interview with the Daily Mirror, Wickremesinghe said that he was surprised the very people who spoke of one country one law have now agreed to one country two laws.
Wickremesinghe had been accused of allowing Prabhakaran to create a de facto separate state in the North and East through a Norwegian-facilitated peace agreement.
The LTTE had its own laws, including its own police unit before the rebels were defeated by the military in 2009.
Concerns have now been raised that the Colombo Port City will become a Chinese colony as a result of the Colombo Port City Economic Commission Bill.
“I have heard this being said about a Chinese colony, But what it can be is an area which will have more power than the area that Prabhakaran ran during the war. And I’m surprised the people who said one country one law is having two laws for the same country,” Wickremesinghe told the Daily Mirror.
He also said that when he was Prime Minister between 2015 and 2019, some countries had raised concerns that the Port City will be used to illegally monitor the Colombo Port.
27-04-2021
Daily mirror
Above is what President Ranil said about the Chinese Port City when he was in the opposition. But he now says in international forums not to be suspicious of Chinese projects in Sri Lanka. He is attacking Western countries led by America. Ranil became the prime minister in 2015 claiming that Mahinda’s government had placed Sri Lanka in a Chinese debt trap and crashed Sri Lanka’s economy. In 2015, the people of Sri Lanka made him the Prime Minister to save Sri Lanka from the Chinese debt trap that the Rajapaksa have put Sri Lanka in; and develop Sri Lanka by taking aid from America, India and Western countries.
Since becoming the leader of the opposition in 1995, Ranil has demonstrated to the country that he can develop Sri Lanka with the assistance of Western countries, including the United States. Podujana Peramuna appointed Ranil as president in 2022, claiming that no other Sri Lankan leader has the connections he does with Western countries, including the United States. If Ranil has recognition among the people of Sri Lanka, it is due to his good relations with Western countries, including the United States. The Rajapaksas have ties to China.
The people defeated Rajapaksas in 2015, and in 2022, they chased them away because Rajapaksas, along with China, ruined Sri Lanka’s economy. If Ranil think China is the option to rebuilt Sri Lanka economically after becoming president, he should step down immediately and hand over the presidency to the Rajapaksas. The reason for this is that Rajapaksa is more adept at dealing with China than Ranil. Podujana Peramuna MPs who elected Ranil as president in 2022 do not want him to partner up with China. They recall that their homes were burned down because the Rajapaksas sided with China and bankrupted the country.
They said they made Ranil the president because Ranil knew the language to deal with the IMF. But now Ranil claims that the IMF is an old mechanism. But when he got the first IMF instalment showed to the country it was a great achievement. His party lit firecrackers. Now he is finding faults with the IMF because they have postponed the payment of the second instalment. On International Women’s Day, he said India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and the IMF Managing Director Kristalina helped Sri Lanka in difficult times. But in Berlin, he said if not for the World Bank and the USAID head Samantha Power he would not be there today.
Reputed as Sri Lanka’s international mastermind, Ranil, has messed up international relations within a year. Attacking the Western countries, which was the biggest strength of his image, will cause his image to fall.
