A pioneer in transport professionalism
shipping sector, to join with the likes of Derek Wijesinghe, Eng. L.S. de Silva, John Diandas, Mandri Sahabandu, Prof. D.S. Wijeyesekera, M.C. Premaratne and H.A. Premaratne to pioneer setting up CIT (Sri Lanka Section) in 1984.
Rohan sought me no sooner than I returned from my higher studies, to bring me into the Ex-Co. In CIT’s fledgling days, he actively sought young people with promise and badgered them to help CIT position transport as a profession in Sri Lanka. He and Anoma were eager hosts to all the informal functions of CIT/CILT. More than one former Treasurer has confided how he made good all operational shortfalls personally.
Vernon de Rosairo recounts how in 2000, Rohan took him to meet Ministers and MPs to get CIT incorporated under an Act of Parliament. Rohan served on the CIT/CILT Council for over 30 years, was elected a Fellow member and its Chairman (Sri Lanka section) in 1993 and 1994. He was an International Vice President for CILT from 1997 to 2001 (the first from Sri Lanka) and Honorary Fellow in 2005, only the second Sri Lankan after John Diandas to be so recognized with CILT’s highest award of honour, which hardly anyone knows since he bore it so humbly.
An active member of the Jaycees, he was JCI National President in 1991, also a key figure in the British Scholars Association of Sri Lanka serving as its President in 2009/2010. He was also an active member of the Ceylon Association of Shipping Agents (CASA).
It was Rohan who made road safety a personal passion for me with his insistence that professionals were not doing enough. He dragged me to meetings with every Minister and Secretary of Transport and with insurance and media houses, challenging them, about their indifference to the rampant increase in road accidents. In 2001/2, we served in the advisory committee that proposed setting up of the National Road Safety Secretariat.
In 2004, it was my turn to get him involved in the Ministry of Transport when professionals were invited to help reform the land transport sector. From day one, we faced opposition from within the government itself. He sat with me on the boards of the National Transport Commission and the Sri Lanka Transport Board during those difficult times. In 2019 we were invited back to serve on the Advisory Council of the Ministry of Transport, but it was too deep in multiple political strangleholds for us to salvage. He worked for the ADB in the Maldives. He served on scores of boards, expert panels, task forces, committees.
In 2002, the Chartered Institute of Shipbrokers honoured him with a lifetime award for his services to the sector. Rohan’s interest in land transport had not distracted him from his commitment to the shipping sector. He was a director of the Ceylon Freight Bureau. He championed getting cruise ships to Sri Lanka.
He was firm in his values and expressed his concerns publicly. His criticism of the decision to construct the Hambantota Port, political meddling with the terminals in the Colombo South Port, and the handling of the Xpress Pearl disaster last year, did not go well with those in power or even other professionals who did not want to displease those in power. He was one who took risks to fight for what was true and what was good for Sri Lanka and the shipping sector – often a lone voice. Sri Lanka is in trouble today, just for the want of a handful of people like Rohan Abeywickrema.
With Anoma being in air travel, he had keen insight into aviation matters as well. He was truly a multimodal transport professional. He even contributed to academia, by actively supporting the formation of the Department of Transport & Logistics Management at the University of Moratuwa and was instrumental in getting the Sri Lanka Society of Logistics and Transport (SLSTL) started in 2014. I was awed to realise that he had presented over 50 technical papers and presentations at conferences and seminars in Sri Lanka and overseas.
He was genuinely concerned about people. He invested in creating good values and professional ethics. He was pained to see the dismantling of institutional norms and attraction to the superficial and glamorous. Rohan would challenge people at meetings, he would challenge them at elections. He was always a servant of whatever he chose to be passionate about. A slight stutter did not stop him from appearing on radio and TV interviews.
Some saw him as a perfectionist, others as a strict disciplinarian. Yet to many, he was a mentor, a ready source of help and counsel. To many he was tough and stubborn, but those who took the trouble to understand him, saw his kind heart and the concerns for which he stood his grounds. I have heard stories of how he went out of the way to help others in their time of need, including during the 1983 riots. He profited by giving. He cared little about what he got.
Rohan was proud of Seneka, his elder daughter doing a MBA in Supply Chain, and thrilled that younger daughter Aneka was proceeding to higher studies in Corporate Finance in Cardiff, where he completed his studies.
Goodbye, my friend, it has been more than a privilege, but a blessing to have known you. Thank you for leading by example. As Matshona Dhilwayo, the Africanborn philosopher noted “To help people takes strength; to inspire people takes wisdom; to rule over them takes virtue, but to elevate them takes love.”Rest assured that those that have valued and profited from your work, will continue to build on them, with love for Lanka and for all humankind.