Life is not just a beach for some as Port City emerges
At 87, Professor B.L. Panditharatne is quite frail and his one-hour long analysis on the ‘Proposed Development of Colombo Metropolis, Western Province and the Colombo Port City’ this week was understandably studded with personal reflections which while interesting, wasn’t really newsworthy.
File picture of Port City
For instance: “When I did my doctorate there was only one building in Colombo which was more than 100 feet, Akasa Kade. All the large Walauwas have given way to storeyed buildings changing the residential land-scape. A middle-class person cannot afford to live in Colombo as they will need three to four lakhs a month for housing”.
Indeed. Or what about: “The Beira Lake today is little more than a third of what it was, most of it has been reclaimed”. Not exactly breaking news. But the word ‘reclaimed’ sparked an animated debate among the small audience at the SLAAS auditorium once the good professor had finished his discourse.
It began with my neighbours Aruna Fernando and Feisal Mansoor leading the way. Aruna is the president of the All Ceylon Fisher Folk Trade Union. He had a number of gripes, old and new. Old being the continued sand mining undertaken for the Colombo Port City being ‘reclaimed’ from the Indian Ocean. His latest bellyache was over Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera’s budget proposal to bar fishermen from fishing in small boats but instead trawl in 55-feet boats.
Let’s look at the contentious sand-mining saga first which has been well-documented mainly due to the marine ecology and related environmental aspects that the fisher folk from Negombo had raised ever since the Port City got its new lease of life under the coalition government.
Removing sand
According to Aruna, 60,000 acres offshore from Negombo has been mined for sand by the three Chinese dredgers operating day and night to fill the 269 hectares site which will make up the Port City.
“The extensive sand mining is affecting the fish breeding areas. We will not feel it now but future yields will be depleted. For 30 years (during the war) we were not allowed to fish in these waters because it was a high security zone. Today that has been given to the Chinese to mine for sand,” Aruna points out.
“As a fisherman we are not allowed to take a bucket of sand from the sea. We will be arrested if we do that. But look at what the Chinese are doing. And the sand for the reclamation is only a small amount for the entire project. They will need 65 million tonnes of sand for the landfill but that is only two per cent of the overall needs for the entire project. What about the sand they will need for all the buildings to come up at Port City?” Aruna asks.
Feisal is a member of the People’s Movement Against the Port City, a vociferous body which has been backing the 60,000 fishing families that live from Negombo to Kerawalapitiya along the Western coast.
“The fisher folk are willing to make a sacrifice for the sake of the country and live with the Port City. But our point is if the government is in so much of debt, then why don’t they sell the sand to the Chinese at US$200 a tonne? If they need 65 million tonnes for the landfill then that will come to US$13 billion,” Feisal sums up.
“We can sort our national debt with this money. But instead of doing this what has happened is the government will get a tract of land at the Port City which is estimated to be worth US$6 billion. How is this an equitable deal? China is the winner,” Feisal adds.
This was the unanimous feeling among the audience. Professor Panditharatne had warned earlier that the urbanisation of the Western Province had to be sustainable but was worried that too many hands in the pie – the government having to deal with so many local bodies and departments – would make it a difficult goal to attain.
“The implementation of acquiring land for development is not an easy process. There are a lot of vested interests and you will need to get the cooperation of everyone to achieve the final target,” says Professor Panditharatne.
Is urbanisation good? Not according to Feisal. “They are gentrifying Colombo not by uplifting the poor but by chasing the poor out. What will happen is one day we will have an antiseptic city like Singapore”.
Livelihoods affected
But that is for the future. For Aruna, his headaches are today. It was made worse by the last budget where the government has proposed that all fishing craft should be of a minimum 55-foot length so as to enable deep sea fishing with the catch being refrigerated.
“The government has banned the smaller 30-foot boats which we have traditionally used. They say the bigger boats will help us go out further. All good but the only problem is the cost. It costs Rs. 15 million for one of the new boats and the government has said they would bear half the cost. But where are we to find the balance money. We can’t even afford Rs.50,000 but they are forcing us to change boats,” Aruna explained.
“What will happen is that a few powerful people, including ministers, will operate the new boats and all the fishermen like Aruna will end up working for them. They will become labourers, instead of being able to stand on their own feet,” Feisal predicted.
No fish, no boats. The fishing community in Negombo have their hands full. And with looming worries that the reef which harbours their precious lagoon is not affected by all the sand mining, it is not happy days even though the government has tried to buy them off by offering a Rs.500 million livelihood support programme.
This has created division among the Negombo and other fishing communities in the area. There are 10 associations, and apparently only one has received a sum of Rs.4.2 million. Is it a case of divide and rule by the government as they try to appease the Chinese and build the Port City?
“Before coming to power, Ranil Wickremesinghe, said he would stop the Port City project. But he couldn’t do it (as probably it was too far down the road). But surely there are better ways to go about this, like selling the sand to the Chinese,” says Feisal.