No fully fledged resh Govt. faces more bu

President’s much-awaited changes just quid pro quo between SLFP and UNP More changes among ministers, deputies and state ministers likely as Sirisena shows who the boss is Amid new floo more than Rs. 9 experts to study

Exactly a week before last Monday’s Cabinet re-shuffle President Maithripala Sirisena told two United National Party (UNP) ministers rather assertively “people must know I am the President of Sri Lanka”. Even if he did not elaborate, the message was loud and clear -- he makes the decisions.

The two ministers were emissaries of their party discussing matters related to the reshuffle. That naturally included a choice of names and positions. As revealed earlier, the duo also sought a delay in the proposed ministerial changes until Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe returned from China. That request saw a meeting between the President and the Premier hours ahead of the latter’s departure to Beijing. Accord was reached. Sirisena called off his self-imposed ban on chairing Cabinet meetings until the reshuffle took place.

When Wickremesinghe returned from Beijing, the two leaders met again, at least on two occasions. This time it was over last-minute changes. Thus, the much anticipated reshuffle took place last Monday. In essence it was a quid pro quo between the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the UNP and was therefore not a full-fledged reshuffle as earlier expected. This is notwithstanding the entire Cabinet, Deputy Ministers and State Ministers being summoned for the reshuffle at the Presidential Secretariat last Monday. The SLFP succeeded in having its bete noire -Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake and Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera -removed by Sirisena from the portfolios they held.

Allegations against them, if any, have neither been revealed to the public nor formally investigated. Yet, in the past months it was known that there would be a swap of the two Ministries. Behind-the-scenes diplomacy has been underway to persuade at least one minister to agree to the shift on the grounds that it would be a “promotion.” Spearheading it was a UNP minister backed by a colleague. Not sur- prisingly, the two UNP ministers, sought additional subjects to be assigned to their ministries. This drew a rather strong response from a leading political figure who said, “This is not a buffet.” He was of course alluding to the fact that ministers can’t just go and help themselves to what they want and underscoring the fuller backdrop in which the changes have been made. President Sirisena, who returned to Sri Lanka from a two-day visit to Australia on Friday night, is yet to sign a Gazette proclamation assigning the subjects. He has told aides before departure to Canberra that he would make no additions but re-assign the same subjects that existed.

However, the likelihood of at least two additional institutions coming under the Foreign Minister was not ruled out yesterday.

Last afternoon Sirisena had a meeting with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. It came ahead of a planned private visit by the latter to the United States. Also present were Ministers Kabir Hashim and Malik Samarawickrema.

Ahead of the reshuffle, Karunanayake who learnt he was being moved out as Finance Minister had a hurried meeting with Prime Minister Wickremesinghe. He is learnt to have asked the reasons for his ouster, why he was singled out and what the allegations against him were. He declined comment on the meeting but said yesterday, “I have supported the drive against corruption. I was doing my best.” The new Foreign Minister said despite the shift in portfolio, “no one can change my resolve to serve the people and my country. I will continue to do so without fear and with dedication.”

It was no easy task when it came for the UNP receiving its part of the quid pro quo. If the SLFPers sought the removal of the Finance and Foreign Ministers, the UNP in turn were seeking changes in two other portfolios – Ports and Shipping (Arjuna Ranatunga) and Petroleum Resources Development (Chandima Weerakkody). The UNP leadership was livid with Ranatunga for allegedly ‘placing stumbling blocks’ over the Hambantota Port project. Together with his brother Dhammika, Chairman of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA), they have been challenging a string of cabinet memoranda submitted by Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrema and Special Assignments Minister Sarath Amunugama.

If the UNP ministers charged that they were placing obstacles to prevent the expeditious conclusion of the project, Ranatunga has insisted that issues were being “raised in the national interest since he was answerable to the nation.” That he had the backing of President Sirisena was clear. In fact, Sirisena has now put a total halt to the signing of the Concession Agreement with the Chinese firm China Merchants Port Holdings Company Limited (CM–Port), a legally binding document to take forward the project. He wants all the controversial issues that have surfaced so far, some of them not advantageous to Sri Lanka, to be resolved first. Hence, he picked on one of his trusted loyalists Mahinda Samarasinghe to be the new Minister of Ports and Shipping. As one senior SLFPer backing Sirisena declared, “He (Samarasinghe) is not a ‘yes’ man”. What he meant was that Samarasinghe will not be a mere rubber-stamp to the UNP-run administration. “He will heed the wishes of the President on any issue. He will not cross the line.” Thus, Sirisena took over a portfolio which had remained within the purview of the UNP and gave it to the SLFP. He acquiesced to the UNP, but also kept the Ministry within his tight grip. The UNP leadership did not object. A balancer appeared to be the inclusion of Tilak Marapana as Minister of Development Assignments.

The removal of Chandima Weerakkody as Minister of Petroleum Resources Development had been the talking point for many weeks now. He was an outspoken critic of any deal to develop the Trincomalee tank farm project with India. He wanted the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation to take over the oil tanks. His public utterances became a major irritant to the UNP leadership who wished to rope in India after the Hambantota Port project with China raised apprehensions in New Delhi. Weerakkody’s repeated public remarks also embarrassed the SLFP leadership, for there were periodic references to President Sirisena.

There is little doubt that the Hambantota Port project was mishandled with little or no input from the Foreign Ministry or other issues relating to national interests being weighed in. As revealed earlier, the firm to whom the award of the project is to be made was one of two companies recommended by the Chinese Ambassador in Sri Lanka. It was selected by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Management (CCEM). The Cabinet of Ministers later approved it together with a Framework Agreement. Thereafter, a Concession Agreement too was approved. However, in a change of mind, the matter was revisited and things have now been put on hold. It is amidst this process that Government leaders became alive to growing concerns in the Indian capital. The New Delhi Government was highly disturbed over the issue. For Sri Lanka, the issue was heightened by events of the past. Damage control became necessary. That was how a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with India was worked out to jointly make investments to develop the Trincomalee Port, establish a petroleum refinery and other industries there.

In the late 1970s, the state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) called for worldwide offers to develop the tank farm as a commercial venture. Multinational oil giants like Shell and Chevron did not respond. The nationalisation of the US oil giants operating then in Sri Lanka, Shell, Caltex and Mobiloil in the 1960s probably acted as a deterrent. An offer arrived from Coastal Corporation, a US firm that was actively trading in oil in Singapore. The CPC and the Coastal Corporation signed an agreement to develop the tank farm.

There were immediate protests from India.

Allegations against them, if any, have neither been revealed to the public nor formally investigated. Yet, in the past months it was known that there would be a swap of the two Ministries. Behind-the-scenes diplomacy has been underway to persuade at least one minister to agree to the shift on the grounds that it would be a “promotion.” Spearheading it was a UNP minister backed by a colleague. Not surprisingly, that these two UNP ministers, sought additional subjects to be assigned to their ministries. This drew a rather strong response from a leading political figure who said, “This is not a buffet