Port City pact released to RTIC for scrutiny

Following public hearings under the Right to Information Act (RTI) after environmental activists and affected fisherfolk filed an appeal to the Right to Information Commission (RTIC), the Tripartite Agreement between the Government of Sri Lanka and CHEC Port City Colombo (Pvt) Ltd was released to the RTIC on March 3.

The Port City Agreement, as it is commonly called, was released for the perusal of the Commission by the Urban Development Ministry, which took over as the supervisory agency of the Port City from the earlier Ministry of Megapolis and Western Development. This came after an order issued by the Commission under the RTI Act. The Act allows the Commission to inspect documents withheld from public release by government bodies and decide if the objection to release is legitimate or not.

Several citizens had petitioned the Commission against the refusal of the Government to release the Agreement under a Right to Information request. They complained the activities of the Port City had begun without the Agreement

being released to the public, without proper environmental approvals and in a context where serious harm had been already caused to the environment.

In particular, they pointed out sand mining from the Port City project would result in the erosion of the Western Coast with Negombo fisher folk being badly affected. Further, they also said Port City high-rise buildings would affect Colombo.

But the Megapolis Ministry had refused to release the Tripartite Agreement citing confidentiality clauses in the Agreement and arguing that disclosure of the information would cause serious prejudice to the economy of Sri Lanka by ‘disclosing premature decisions to change or continue government, economic or financial policies relating to; entering into overseas agreements.’

In the hearings before the RTI Commission on appeal, the Government was directed to produce the Tripartite Agreement before the Commission. The order was complied with. The Government was also being called upon to answer as to how a concluded Agreement could be regarded as a ‘premature’ release of information and if so, to demonstrate by citation of specific clauses where negotiations were said to be ongoing.

The fact that confidentiality clauses in an Agreement cannot, by themselves, shut out the RTI Act has been emphasized along with the fact that the information refused to be disclosed must be clearly marked as confidential at the time that the information was given by a third party to the Public Authority.

In this case, as it relates to the release of an Agreement between the Government and a third party and is of significant public interest in Sri Lanka, the Government has been directed to strictly substantiate its position as to why the information could not be released.

The Urban Development Ministry has, meanwhile, been ordered by the Commission to produce all environmental assessment reports relating to the Port City Project. The appeal is ongoing. The next date on which it will be called before the RTIC is March 17.