Government capitulates on Port City; rain gods make Colombo mega-flood-polis!
by Rajan Philips-December 12, 2015
It looks more like capitulation than compromise. Rather than downsizing Port City as a compromise, let alone scrapping it as it vowed it would in the now-forgotten 100-Day Program, the government has all but approved the restarting of the suspended project at its bloated 450+/- hectares off-shore footprint. News of the approval appeared almost simultaneously in Beijing and in Colombo. The Chinese authorities are pleased, and the Sri Lankan government has spelt out the ‘next steps’ in the approval process. Before long contractors will resume dredging, blasting and digging operations in the Gampaha District that would ultimately remove nearly 70 million cubic meters of sand and rock (equivalent to: one mile by one mile by 85 feet deep hole) and dump it off-shore across from the Galle Face Green. What Prime Minister Wickremesinghe deadpanned as "few landfills" is a massive dig and fill operation undertaken in one fell swoop, but for the interruption following the January 8 election.
