The Chinese-funded Colombo Port City Development Project, which has been mired in controversy, will hereafter be handled by the Urban Development Authority (UDA).
This was decided by the Cabinet on Wednesday evening, considering various aspects of the project such as requirements of water, transport and other infrastructure.
Report submission The decision follows submission of a report by a committee of secretaries, which was formed in May. Till now, the Ministry of Ports and Shipping was in charge of the project execution. The project, which became an issue during the presidential election in January this year, was suspended by the present government, a week ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit in March.
In September last year, an agreement was signed between the Secretary in the Ministry and the executing agency, CHEC Port City Colombo (Private) Limited. The UDA would now seek legal opinion whether it could sign a fresh agreement.
The Cabinet also decided that the Central Environmental Authority would commence “immediately” a complete environmental impact assessment of the project with regard to sand mining, rock blasting and other related activities. The expected duration of the study was four months.
When the project was suspended three months ago, the China Communications Construction Company Limited (CCCC), the investor in the project, had stated in a release that the foreign direct investment by the Company for the project would be $ 1.4 billion and an estimated 83,000 jobs would be generated locally.
Another decision of the Cabinet was to hold the 2016 national sports festival in the Jaffna and Kilinochchi districts of the Northern Province.
