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'Right to Know Day' which falls today, (28th Sept), has taken on special significance for Sri Lanka since the enactment of the Right to Information (RTI) law which has enabled citizens to ask crucial questions on how we are being governed. To mark Right to Know Day, TISL has launched a complete interactive database of the decisions made by the RTI commission, classified by topic and geographical location, which can now be accessed via www.cd.rtiwatch.lk, our dedicated RTI website. 

As we celebrate Right to Know Day, we recognise some of the key milestones of RTI, ranging from citizens receiving redress following RTI requests on corruption within the Vavuniya general hospital to landmark decisions of the RTI Commission on information disclosure by state owned enterprises, such as Sri Lankan Airlines. Looking ahead to October, TISL will be concluding its final submissions before the RTI Commission on accessing the assets declarations of the President and the Prime Minister.  

While great strides have been made in using RTI at all levels of public service, be it in the fight against corruption or as a tool to improve public service delivery, citizens continue to encounter resistance and obstacles when exercising this fundamental right. Since the RTI Act came into effect on February 3, 2017, TISL has facilitated the filing of 1,457 RTI applications for the public via the 6 RTI hubs in Ampara, Matara, Vavuniya, Jaffna, Trincomalee and Colombo. Success has varied and at times solutions are provided to citizens, without the information itself being provided. Whilst this has short term benefits, it is essential that information flows are established through RTI to ensure its long-term sustainability.   

In addition to training public officials, focus must now be on strict monitoring of implementation as well. In his statement marking International Right to Know Day TISL Executive Director Asoka Obeyesekere stated that “The impact that RTI has had on governance in Sri Lanka cannot be understated. At TISL we encounter the stories of members of the public who have been able to use RTI to great effect. From accessing public services like waste collection to securing land rights and exposing bribery and corruption, RTI has been a success, with the next phase requiring the timely proactive disclosure of information.  It is only with sustained commitment that RTI will achieve its transformational potential”.

The Sri Lanka government is grappling to revitalize the state-run national carrier, SriLankan Airlines, by entering into a public-private partnership (PPP) with a foreign airline or an aviation company. 

The negotiations with US private equity firm TPG Capital to restructure the airline collapsed following due diligence of the struggling airline that is saddled with a US$ 1billion debt burden.   The Ministry of Finance will seek preliminary bids for SriLankan Airlines by next month, ministry sources said.

The government expects to be in talks with at least two prospective investors by the first quarter of next year. The government has called for bids and offered to absorb all the company’s debt in 2016 and eight parties have expressed their interest so far, ministry sources said. 

The interested parties include the buyout firm Blackstone Group LP as well as TPG. The company’s accumulated losses have increased to LKR 141.1 billion (USD 879 million) as of March 2017.

Working together to take action against marine litter, the Delegation of the European Union (EU), United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), and the Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA) of the Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment cleaned up the Prithipura public beach in Wattala as part of Sri Lanka's coastal clean-up week 2018.

International Coastal Clean-up Day on 15 September kick started a week-long series of beach clean-ups in Sri Lanka. Around 1.59 million tonnes of waste is released into the ocean around the island annually. Every year millions of tonnes of plastic end up in the ocean, ten per cent of which is marine litter made up of derelict fishing gear. It takes hundreds of years for the plastic to degrade and disintegrate into tiny pieces known as microplastics which are unwelcome and dangerous guests in our food chain.


EU Ambassador Tung-Laï Margue helping to clean up Preethipura beach

"The EU's Plastics Strategy is translating political commitment into bold action at home and abroad", said EU Ambassador H.E. Tung-Laï Margue. "The EU is playing a leading role in ocean governance, and is helping to build momentum for a global call for cleaner and safer seas. EU Delegations around the world have organised beach clean-up campaigns to mark International Coastal Clean-up Day, and we are happy to be doing the same here in Sri Lanka. Immediate and continuous action is vital to tackle ocean plastic waste to ensure sustainable oceans and fisheries, and to support resilient coasts and coastal communities". 

Hanna Singer, the UN Resident Co-ordinator, noted that "SDG 14 calls for action that will ‘by 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, in particular, from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution’. The UN in Sri Lanka, through its many agencies has continuously engaged in activities focused on ocean and coastal preservation. Our commitment, together with the government, to protect marine ecosystems and biodiversity has been further strengthened through the renewed focus on environmental management in the UN Sustainable Development Framework 2018 – 2022".

MEPA General Manager Dr. Terney Pradeep Kumara said, "The waste which accumulates in seas around Sri Lanka is not merely from Sri Lanka; it comes from neighbouring countries.  Therefore, a sustainable solution is needed to control the release of waste to the sea. Tackling marine debris requires educating people–they  must be briefed about matters such as encouraging the reduction of using single use plastics and waste segregation, recycling and beach clean ups. In line with this, MEPA has organised almost 100 beach clean-ups around Sri Lanka during coastal clean-up week, and I thank the EU and UNOPS for being part of this programme".

The government has given close to 23,000 loans under its 'Enterprise Sri Lanka' concessionary credit schemes aimed at reviving entrepreneurship and private enterprise in the island.

The Ministry of Finance and Media in statement said that 22,957 people have been granted these concessionary loans amounting to more than LKR 49 billion.

All of these loan amounts are distributed through state and private banks with Bank of Ceylon awarding the most loans to 11,711 applicants.

Regional Development Bank has provided loans to 5,612 individuals and institutions while the People’s Bank have provided loans to 1,402 applicants.

Spearheaded by Finance and Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera, the Enterprise Sri Lanka programme will aim to create 100,000 entrepreneurs in the country within the first year of the programme which consist of 16 collateral free concessionary loan schemes for aspiring and established entrepreneurs alike.

Saudi Arabia has pledged USD 300 million in aid to Sri Lanka for water supply projects and agricultural, education and health sector development, according to Sri Lankan media outlets.

Saudi ambassador Abdul Nazar Al Hardi announced the assistance project to reporters during a visit to a road development project in Padiyatalawa in eastern Sri Lanka on Sunday.

“We are happy to assist Sri Lanka and look forward to strengthening bilateral ties with Sri Lanka,” he said.

Sri Lanka has been actively seeking to improve ties with Saudi Arabia for the last several years, particularly in the tourism sector. In 2017, more than 50,000 Saudi nationals visited Sri Lanka.

Additionally, the Saudi Fund for Development has been operating in Sri Lanka for more than 30 years, and recently funded a 200-bed hospital for epileptics in the capital of Colombo. 

"The total funds guaranteed by the Saudi Fund for Development to Sri Lanka reaches nearly USD 300 million in various sectors -health, education, water supply, irrigation, agriculture and road development. The Kingdom also accommodates nearly 200,000 skilled Sri Lankan workers”, the ambassador added.

Sri Lankan airlines also operates 18 return flights to Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam to cater to the Sri Lankan expatriate population in the kingdom, the largest Sri Lankan community in the Middle East.

Sri Lanka will be implementing worldwide brand promotion campaign with the aim of finding new markets and strengthening existing ones for Ceylon Tea.

Sri Lanka Tea Board will provide financial assistance for registered tea exporters under the Brand Promotion Scheme for promotion of pure Ceylon tea brands with Lion Logo in selected overseas markets for the year 2019.

Only Sri Lankan owned tea brands which have been registered in Sri Lanka by the Director General, National Intellectual Property office will be eligible for promotional assistance under the scheme.

Applications for financial assistance for brand promotion projects with lion logo were closed  on September 21.  

As the facilitator, Sri Lanka Tea Board is assisting the private sector companies to improve their performance in terms of exports. The government has set a target of USD 5 billion by 2020.

In order to achieve these targets and since the country’s production capacity is limited, the Tea exporters will have to bring a higher dollar value per kilo of teal.

The Tea board has launched this campaign involving marketing, branding, value addition and attracting a higher consumer level than the mass-market consume. 

The Government has proposed life imprisonment for the offence of terrorism if such act caused any other person’s death under the new Counter Terrorism Bill gazetted last week.This vital piece of legislation, which received conditional Cabinet approval early this month, will do away with the widely-objected Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act of 1979.

The 88-page Bill is to make provisions for the protection of Sri Lanka and its people from acts of terrorism and other associated offences. It provides for the identification, apprehension, arrest, custody, detention, investigation, prosecution and punishment of any person who has committed an act of terrorism or any other associated offence.

It provides for the detection of terrorist acts and other offences associated with terrorism. The Bill has provisions to prevent terrorism and other associated offences committed within or outside Sri Lanka.It also prevents using Sri Lanka’s territory and its people for the preparation for terrorism outside Sri Lanka.

The preamble to the Bill states that the legislation is based on international norms and standards and domestic needs.The provisions of the proposed legislation apply to any Sri Lankan citizen within or outside the country’s territory. It covers the territorial waters and the airspace of Sri Lanka, and the office premises of diplomatic missions in Sri Lanka including the residences of those diplomats.

The Bill says that the offences committed with the intention of “intimidating a population, wrongfully or unlawfully compelling the Sri Lankan government, any other government, or an international organization, to do or to abstain from doing any act, preventing any such government from functioning or causing harm to the territorial integrity or sovereignty of Sri Lanka or any other sovereign country,” are considered as acts of terrorism.

Identifying the need to deal with emerging cyber-terrorism risks, the Government has defined that “causing obstruction or damage to, or interference with, any electronic, automated or computerised system or network or cyber environment of domains assigned to Sri Lanka including websites,” as an act of terrorism if committed with the above mentioned intentions.

The Bill proposes life imprisonment for a person guilty of committing a terrorist act which caused the death of another person upon conviction by the High Court. If there had been no deaths, but still the act was aimed at killing another person, such person can be punished with “imprisonment for a period which may extend to life imprisonment upon conviction by the High Court”.

In addition to that, the court may order that all or any property of such person, be forfeited to the Republic. As per the Bill, any person who “attempts, abets or conspires to commit”, an offence of terrorism is liable to imprisonment of a term not exceeding 15 years and to a fine not exceeding Rs 1 million.The bill also states that a person could not be held in remand for more than 6 months without instituting criminal proceedings. However, the period of remand may be extended to a maximum of another six months on an order of a High Court Judge, on an application made by the Attorney General. The Magistrate can give conditional bail to the suspect if criminal proceedings are not instituted within 12 months.

According to the Bill, detention beyond two weeks is possible only with the approval of a Magistrate and no suspect shall be detained for more than two months under Detention Orders. The Police should notify the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka of the detention of suspects within 72 hours.The Magistrate, before whom a suspect has been produced and detained, and Human Rights Commission, can lisit and interview the suspect and look into his well-being without giving any advance notice.

The draft law proposes to have day-to-day trials for cases filed under it.Under the new law, the President can declare “Curfew” either to the entirety or part of Sri Lanka including its territorial waters and air space for the protection of national or public security from terrorism and other associated offences. The maximum period of any Curfew Order shall not exceed 24 hours at a time. A person, who willfully violates a Curfew Order, is liable to a fine not exceeding Rs 300,000.

A JO provincial politician using a Diplomatic passport is said to have travelled to South Korea and is being accused of human smuggling social media sources say. 

According to Lanka E News, Chairman of the Baddegama Pradeshiya Sabha and Sri Lanka Podhu Jana Peramuna Politician Anura Narangoda is said to be involved in this racket. 

Sources say he has acquired Rs. 600 000 each from three people on the promise that he will safely drop them off to Korea and has left the country now for this purpose.

The Agriculture Ministry plans to set up mango cultivation zones in Dambulla and Jaffna. On the advice of Agriculture Minister Mahinda Amaraweera, initiatives have been taken to implement this project under the rapid agriculture development project ‘We plant - We eat’. The aim of this project is to plant mango trees in the selected districts in view of favourable weather and environment conditions.

Mango plantation zones will be the first project under the rapid agriculture development project ‘We plant - We eat’. The project has been funded by the World Bank-assisted Agricultural Modernisation Project and 100,000 Tom EJC mango plants will be planted in these zones.

The Tom EJC species of mangoes grow well in both dry and wet zones and there is a huge demand for these mangoes nationally and internationally. The Ministry has taken this initiative targetting the export market. As a first step, 12,500 plants will be planted in Dambulla.

The currency depreciation in the face of the US Dollar is not a phenomenon particular to Sri Lanka, but common in many countries in South and East Asia. Therefore, it is very unfair to interpret this tendency as a fault of the Government, SLMC Leader and City Planning and Water Supply Minister Rauff Hakeem said.

He said the currency depreciation rate is much higher in countries such as, India and Indonesia than in Sri Lanka. Minister Hakeem said so after participating in a ceremony held at the Badi-ud-Din Mahmud Vidyalaya in Kandy on September 22.

Minister Hakeem said the only way we could arrest this tendency is by increasing foreign investments and boosting exports. He said increased purchase of imported goods may also jack up prices.

“As such, there was no cause for anxiety thinking that the rupee depreciation was a problem endemic to our country only,” Minister Hakeem said.

He said the economic policies of U.S. President Donald Trump had caused this situation. “America’s economic war with China and the European Union had caused the currency depreciation in several countries,” Minister Hakeem said.

He said the present IGP is an efficient and talented officer but the manner in which he expressed his ideas had caused some problems.

“A government should bring in a new Constitution within its first year in office. Prolonging it had caused objections. In this situation no one could expect the 20th Amendment to succeed,” he said.

Source : Daily News

President Maithripala Sirisena called upon the international community to look at Sri Lanka with a fresh perspective and consider the tremendous progress made by the government towards reconciliation, restoration of democratic freedoms, human rights and the rule of law and extend the fullest support to the build a progressive, democratic, free and equal society.

Addressing the 73rd Session of the United nations General Assembly in New York on September 25 (26th morning in SL time), he said Sri Lanka is taking action to consolidate peace and forge ahead to develop the economy, and such a nation deserves the support and understanding of the international community. “I urge the international community to allow Sri Lankan people to solve their problems on their own,” he said.

As an independent country we do not want any foreign power to exert influence on us. We want to appeal to the international community to give us the room to resolve the problems that we are facing so that the right of the Sri Lankan people to find solutions to their problems is respected, he said.

The President  said that the government is working to eliminate fear and suspicion among different communities.

Quoting from the Buddha’s preaching in the Sallasutta of Samyuktha Nikaye in Thripitaka, he said if a man is pierced with a dart, he will suffer physical pain. When he worries about it, he suffers more pain. Hence, there are two kinds of pains suffered by the man. When it comes to Sri Lanka, it is the people who suffered pain due to war and they continue to feel pain when they think about it. Therefore, I take this opportunity to call upon your support and cooperation, he said.

The President pointed out that the exodus of refugees is a major issue in international politics and urged the United Nations to play a bigger role because of the paramount importance of the issue.

Sri Lanka is following a nonaligned policy. In fact, Sri Lanka hosted the Non-aligned Summit in 1976 and it was the most successful summit. Sri Lanka has a policy of friendship with all and the country does not have any enemy nation in the world, he said.

President Sirisena said that Sri Lanka’s Executive President had been vested with more powers than any other leader in the world, and he had curtailed those excessive powers of the Executive Presidency and transferred those powers to the Parliament.

President Sirisena emphasized the need to eradicate poverty. At present, the whole world is engaged in an attempt to free itself from poverty and he said the United Nations must play a bigger role in the endeavour.

“I must mention that, today, the whole world is facing challenges posed by severe changes in climate. I would like to propose that the community of nations must focus on implementing the Paris Accord that the world reached in 2015, by further improving the unity that we reached by signing that accord. We must remember that the Paris Accord is critically important to the future of the entire biosphere and humanity,” he said.

The President categorically stated that the government is committed to work tirelessly to achieving reconciliation by fostering understanding among all ethnic and linguistic groups, while eliminating mutual suspicion and hatred in order to create a society where all can live freely and harmoniously. “Further, we are dedicated to ensure that the country will accomplish economic prosperity. Specially, my government is committed to the creating a fair and just society by strengthening the rule of law”, he said.

He said that during the last three and a half years, the government has taken several important steps that are necessary to consolidate democracy, freedom, good governance, media freedom and independence of the judiciary. “Through such transformative steps, we have laid the foundation necessary to forge national reconciliation, communal harmony and ensure non-recurrence of conflict in our country,” he said.

“As a country that has suffered violent conflict for 30 years, we are drawing from experience and lessons learned to strengthen national reconciliation, and we are determined to prevent the recurrence of conflict. We have given priority in this context to consolidate freedom and democracy in our country, and through a strong foundation of national reconciliation forged through unity and friendship among communities,” the President said.

President Sirisena pointed out that the most ruthless terrorists were defeated by the armed forces and the nation honour the valiant soldiers who made many sacrifices to bring peace to the country and safeguarded then unity and sovereignty of th nation with utmost commitment.
He emphasized that the vision of the government is to ensure sustained economic development through the increase of domestic agriculture and industry under an environment friendly policies and programs. He emphasized the imperative need to adhere to the Paris Protocol on Climate Change for the sake of the future of the human beings as well as flora and fauna.

“Sir Lanka has always been a country that has respected its treaties and conventions, agreements and rules and regulations of the United Nations. As such, in our country’s journey where we protect our independence and sovereignty, we respectfully request the support of the international community for us to go on a moderate but steady path to achieve our targets in order to find sustainable solutions to the allegations leveled against us,” the President said.

President Sirisena called on the world leaders to take a collective action for eradication of narcotic drugs and illegal pharmaceuticals. He said he wanted to draw the attention of the respected General Assembly of the United Nations to the problem of drugs that poses a serious threat to human society and asked the world body to play a bigger role in eliminating drugs.

The President said that in the international politics, the issue of Palestine is very important and reiterated Sri Lanka’s support to the people of Palestine.

Sri Lankan skipper Angelo Mathews has handed over a letter to the Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) addressing the decision to dismiss him as the Captain of the ODI Captain.
 
Sri Lanka’s selectors removed Angelo Mathews as ODI captain, last night (23) and appointed Test captain Dinesh Chandimal in his place. The move comes after Mathews attracted a hail of public criticism over the team’s performance in the Asia Cup, where they were knocked out following first-round defeats to Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
 
Following the announcement, Angelo Mathews has officially resigned from the captaincy f the ODI team through his letter to SLC. In the letter, Mathews expresses that he “initially surprised” by the decision but then made it feel he had been made “the scapegoat in the entire saga of Sri Lanka’s dismissals performances against Bangladesh and Afghanistan in the Asia Cup”.
 
“I’m willing to take part of the blame but at the same time, feel betrayed and let down if the blame is solely put on me. As you know all decisions are taken tough the a mutual understanding with Selectors and the Head Coach,” wrote Mathews. “And though I do not agree with the reasoning that the losses should be carried single handedly to the Captaincy, I however eagerly and wholeheartedly respect the request of the selection committee and the head coach asking me to step down and do so with immediate effect.
 
“I wish to put it on record that though Sri Lanka had suffered these heavy defeats in the Asia Cup, which is shocking to say the least, especially in the backdrop where we had a reasonable series against South Africa, I had no intention of quitting and running away from the issues at hand especially owing to the World Cup being a dozen games away.”
 
Mathews went on to ask the selectors whether the find him suitable for the ODI and T20I teams, in which case he would retire from these two formats. He also added that he was Sri Lanka’s highest run-getter in the home series versus South Africa this summer, while wishing the team all the best.

Source : Ada Derana