Hambantota port commercially not viable: Sarath N Silva

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 August 2011, 06:38 GMT]
"We have built a mega port in Hambantota, but it is not commercially viable yet," the Reuters reported Wednesday quoting former SL Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva at a JVP organised meeting in Colombo on Tuesday. “From the top to bottom, corruption has become a systemic issue... Foreign investors will be discouraged from investing here if this goes on,” Mr. Silva has said. "The anti-corruption law is ineffective. The anti-graft commission can investigate only if they receive a compliant and if the complaint is wrong, the complainant will be given an up to 10 year jail term," the former SL chief justice has said.

“With the money being spent on blasting a massive rock at the port, so many schools could be built,” The Island quoted Silva as saying at the same meeting.

“The government had just dug a hole and built a harbour in Hambantota”.

“Lloyds would not insure a port which was less than 35 m deep and the depth of Hambantota port was only 20 m,” Silva said adding that the late SL minister M. H. M. Ashraff had built a port in Oluvil, where no vessels could enter. ”Only its managers were there,” Silva has said at the JVP backed meeting while declaring open an anti-corruption website called anticorruptsl.com, The Island report said.

Mr. Silva who was chief justice for ten years until his retirement in 2009 backed the former SLA Commander Sarath Fonseka challenging Mahinda Rajapaksa in the SL presidential elections.

Sarath Silva, while he was the former SL Chief Justice backed the genocidal agenda of the Sri Lankan state with controversial rulings in the de-merger of the North-East Province and in the nullifying of the post-Tsunami agreement that was signed between the GoSL and the LTTE.