Billion-dollar Northern housing tender resurfaces

anyone but a company the size of ArcelorMittal.

A source said on condition of anonymity, “The local agent Ravi Wettasinghe and the French principals were hanging around the ministry all week. Mr. Wettasinghe has been visiting the ministry very often.”

The Sunday Times independently confirmed that this agent had been frequenting the ministry, making a mockery of the open, transparent bidding process the Government has publicly committed itself to.

It is learnt that ArcelorMittal may have agreed to change the construction material from prefabricated steel to a cheaper option which would enable the company to offer each unit at a lower price. Earlier this year, Moratuwa University experts found after a detailed technical study that the steel houses ArcelorMittal had earlier proposed had inadequate foundations, insufficient roof support, were at risk of corrosion, were poorly ventilated and had no hearth and chimney.

They warned that the dwellings had poor or non-existent capacity for extension or repair, a much shorter life-span than block wall houses, were unlikely to create a sense of ownership, unlikely to foster the local economy or generate employment and were at least double the cost of a block wall house.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) opposed the project on several grounds, among which was that the prefabricated material used for the houses was not conducive to the environment of the North.

Minister D.M. Swaminathan did not wish to be quoted on comments he made to the Sunday Times on the project.