The Right to Information Commission yesterday ordered the Ministry of Investment Promotion to release the tripartite agreement on the Colombo Port City Development Project, following a lengthy hearing process.
The Ministry of Megapolis and Western Development, the Urban Development Authority, and the China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) Port City Colombo Ltd signed the agreement in 2017.
The Centre for Environmental Justice (CEJ) requested a copy of the agreement from the Ministry of Megapolis and Western Development in 2018, but was denied due to the presence of confidential clauses. The CEJ’s appeal was accepted by the Commission, resulting in the longest hearing in the Commission’s history, lasting four years.
Commissioner Kishali Pinto Jayawardena, who delivered the final order, stated that the Ministry of Investment Promotion was unable to determine which clauses should be kept confidential, and that the tripartite agreement signed in 2014 for the development of Colombo Port City is now in the public domain due to the judicial process.
As a result, the commission stated that they do not see the need to keep the document out of the public domain. Despite the fact that the public authority provided parts of the agreement to the appellants in 2021, the CEJ later requested the entire agreement through the appeal process, and the order was delivered in their favour yesterday.