The security of the Port of Colombo has been put at risk with the sinking of a container carrying ship on Saturday, and various authorities squabbling over who is in charge of salvaging it, according to shipping officials.

Some senior officials in the Sri Lanka Ports Authority, which runs the harbour, have openly said that they are in charge of operations to salvage the “MV Leerort”, which sank after being hit by another container carrier, the “MV Zim Piraeus”, shipping sources said.

The SLPA is considering hiring a consultant to supervise and advise on the salvaging, sources said.

However, Navy chief Vice Admiral Cecil Tissera on Monday sent an official message to his Western Area Commander, Rear Admiral Terrence Sundaram, in which he has made it abundantly clear that the security of the port is of paramount importance, since it is a known target of the LTTE.

Vice Admiral Tissera has ordered that whatever salvage operations are conducted, must be under the command of the navy, no matter who does the salvaging.

However, senior SLPA officials are unhappy about this situation, sources said.

Meanwhile, the owners of the ship have already contracted with the well known salvage firm Master Divers Ltd., to salvage the ship and its cargo.

This has been done through an often used procedure known as “Lloyd’s Open Form”, by which the salvage firm will refloat the ship, take possession of the ship and cargo, and then negotiate a price through arbitration. The ship and cargo will then be returned to the owner.

Master Divers had tied up with Smith’s, the giant Singaporean salvage firm. A senior Smith official, Ivor Woodward, is already in Colombo to organize operations, together with Master Divers.

However, several other salvage firms have rushed representatives to Colombo, who have been meeting with senior SLPA officials to try and win the contract. Among them are another Singaporean firm named SEMCO, and Netherlands salvage firm Wijs Muller.

SLPA officials don’t want Smith and Master Divers to start until they decide who to have as a consultant, sources said.

The key factor in all this appears to be the fact that the salvage contract will run into hundreds of millions of rupees.

Shipping is an expensive business, and salvaging sunken ships is even more expensive, since it involves great danger to those doing the work, as well as the use of very expensive machinery, hiring of tugboats, divers, and the fee to the salvage firm.

However, in all these arguments, the security of the port seems to be taking a back seat, much to the concern of the navy, which is responsible for defending it.

Salvaging the ship is a job which may take more than a month, with a least a hundred people involved in the work. This will definitely be a security headache for the navy, to have so many outsiders, including foreigners, milling around on the four Jaye Container Terminals (JCT), which are the main areas of the port.

Of particular concern is the fact that the work will involve dozens of drivers, since most of the work will be done underwater.

In the past, the LTTE has used divers very successfully to attack coastal targets, sending them into Colombo, Trincomalee, Kankesanthurai and Karainagar to blow up ships and installations.

In April 1996, divers and surface craft attacked Colombo harbour, and the navy was barely able to stop them.

Thus, Tissera’s grave concern for the port’s security is understandable, as is his insistence that the navy oversee the salvage operation.

It is more than likely that the LTTE will use the salvage operation to its benefit, hoping to confuse navy sentries into thinking that Tiger frogmen are part of the salvage team. The sentries, whose chief method of stopping the underwater enemy is to drop grenades into the water, will be unable to do so, for fear of killing or wounding the salvage men.

The salvage divers will be spending long lengths of time underwater, since they will have to tunnel under the ship to fix more than a dozen slings for the vessel to be lifted up by cranes. In addition, they will be sealing leaks, including one which is more than three metres in length near the left bow, where the other ship rammed it.

Meanwhile, it appears that the SLPA is hell bent on covering up the causes of the accident from the public. Press photographers who rushed to the scene were barred from getting close, except for a short time on Sunday when Shipping Minister Ashraff was inspecting the scene.

The sad fact is that the collision wa almost certainly the fault of the SLPA, since ships are brought into and taken out of the harbour by harbour pilots who work for the port. The ships captains are not in charge during these stages.

Senior government officials are trying to assess the damage that the sinking will cause to the country’s economy, which revolves around the port. The amount of business in the harbour will be hampered. Although only a 150 - meter section of JCT 2 terminal has been closed for the moment, the approach to JCT 1 is also blocked, and there is a high likelihood of JCT3 and JCT4 will be hampered during the salvage operation.

Clearly, the SLPA has managed to do something that even the JVP could not do at the height of its insurrection: close down a part of the Colombo harbour.

Six of the 62 containers which were on the deck of the ship fell into the water, and are still missing, causing a danger to other vessels.

In addition, two of the containers which are among the hundreds still inside the ship, contained dangerous cargo. One had nitric acid, while the other had a type of inflammable liquid. These may cause dangers to the salvage team.

Government revenue from the port will definitely suffer, causing further cash problem, at a time when Defence secretary Chandrananda de Silva has reportedly urged all government employees to donate one week’s salary to the war effort.

Very little of this is included in the formal University curricula. Under the NAREPP project the allocation for training alone was US $ 600,000. Unfortunately half of these trainees are now out of the EIA field. Most of them were from Central Government, Universities, Authorities and Departments. Some NGO staff also got trained under this programme.

However, the worst problems arose when these individuals who have taken short courses were asked to prepare full scale EIAs and asked to evaluate some EIAs.

Poor Quality of EIAs
Most of the EIAs were prepared by the part time consultants who are working in Universities etc. Some of them do not have the discipline of conducting EIAs or enough time to do a proper job. The result is that the majority of the IEEs and many of the EIAs have become desk studies. Though they were passed through the EIA process they were not proper studies. They were not important as a tool is decision making and the results and the conclusions and mitigation were not given any good suggestion for the preparation of conditions in the approval or for monitoring and evaluation.

It was reported in some recent EIAs the team leaders and the executive officer of the EIA consultancy firms have changed the consultants opinion to justify the original sites thought they are not the suitable site. Also they have pressured the PAAs to get their approvals.

EIA is now a business and it acts like a Mafia game with some industries, some EIA consultants and some decision markers work together to justify the projects.

High Costs
Most funding agencies require an EIA of the projects before providing funds for developing countries. This money is always included in the loan while EIA firms in developed countries are contracted to conduct these EIAs. The detailed reports prepared by these consultants take more months resulting in more months resulting in more money being spent. The data which they put in the EIA is hardly any relevance to the main issue. Also these EIAs mislead the decision makers as well as the public. These consultants are not familiar with the local situation and their capacity is only for lengthy report writing.

When local EIA consultants also try to do the same the costs are going up and making trouble to the local developers who are not funded by any funding agencies. Also most EIA consultants demand a high price for their work due to very few EIA consultants in Sri Lanka and this increase the costs.

Delays
Normally EIA takes 120 days and IEE takes 60 days for formal administrative work. But normally EIA preparation is a time consuming work. Therefore EIA s takes 6 months to 2 years. If EIA consultants work full time this time can be easily reduced. Also increasing EIA handing capacity in the CEA and the EIA cells are very important.

According to Pravaiz Naim (Future of EIA in developing Countries: Credibility Crisis? AREAP News Bulletin February 1998) “Developing countries which have made EIA mandatory for project clearance face main two problems. Firstly, the lack of locally available trained personel to conduct the assessment. Secondly, once the EIA reports are completed and submitted, Environment Protection Agencies or other licensing agencies find themselves swamped with a large number of reports to review. Indonesia for instance, carries a backlog of several hundred EIA reports awaiting appraisal. Delays caused by these factors translate into delays in implementation project, which of then result in the business community feeling frustrated and resorting to bribery to circumvent required process and protocols.”

There is also a tendency amongst the business community in developing countries to view EIA as just another requirement imposed by the government due to pressure from developed countries. Thus, they tend to regard EIA as a ‘ploy of the developed countries’ to undermine their business interests by unnecessarily delaying the pace of project progress and by increasing the cost of the project.

Low quality approvals
Since the capacities of EIA Cells in other ministries are not well developed most of the EIA approvals are been prepared by the CEA staff. Unfortunately most of the trained staff have left CEA for some reason. Today most of the EIA approvals are not up to the quality and lack many important aspects and they do not contain good monitoring indicators. The recent approval of the Waste water facility at Moratuwa, Ratmalana is a very good example for this low quality approval.

No monitoring and evaluation
None of the EIA Cells on the CEA on the project approving agencies do monitor or evaluate the project approved by them. None of them have capacity or expertise to monitor the project. In addition they do not appreciate a mechanism for self monitoring.

This has resulted in many violations. All prawn farms, many hotel projects in all industrial parks are very good examples for this situation.

No enforcement
Many PAAs believe that they do not have enforcement rights under the NEA and they tend to believe that only CEA has this power. Also their attitude towards development do not allow them to enforce or at least correct the developers. Therefore these PAAs have not developed this enforcement skills.

Unfortunately the CEA which is the main Authority under the NEA have not developed this enforcement capacity for the last 17 years. This has resulted in the pollution in Sri Lanka getting increased. The political leadership which always back the development policy does not allow the CEA to develop its enforcement skills. Therefore none of the EIA violations have been taken to courts or at least have not directed these violators to correct the situation. This is common for both EIA and Environmental Protection Licenses (EPLs).

Public and NGOs
Public are not very much interested about or confident about the process. Unfortunately this is due to a lack of understanding and a lack of awareness about the right to participate in decision making. The recent EIA on Coal power project in Kalpitiya is a very good example. Even the very educated people have not used this EIA to comment properly.

There are hundreds of NGOs in Sri Lanka but very few have the capacity to participate in the EIA process. The main reason is that most of the NGO people are very sentimental and do not have capacity to comment on technical data. Many of the NGOs do not improve the skills to participate in these projects.

Political will
None of the politicians have shown any real interest to improve or at least to consider this process when they come to power. After the inclusion of EIA provision it took another 5 years to gazette the regulations. After 1994 there were a number of instances to suspend EIA laws and reduce public commenting period. Also in a number of instances the CEA was blamed by certain politicians as sabotaging the development.

None accountability of consultant
In many other Asian countries in which the EIA process is practised the consulting firms are not held liable for the recommendations made. Most of the EIA consultants normally prepare the EIA documents to justify the projects. They suggest mitigation methods which increase the cost of the project and therefore these mitigation is never done at the end of the project. Since no enforcement of the NEA is done it is not a problem for the developers.

The code of ethics practice by the Environmental professional in the world agreed that the professionals will

• be personally responsible for the validity of all data collected, analyses performed, or plans developed by me or under my direction.

• be responsible and ethical in my professional activities.

• encourage research, planning, design, management and review of activities in a scientifically and technically objective manner.

• incorporate the best principals of the environmental sciences for the mitigation of environmental harm and enhancement of environmental quality.

• not condone misrepresentation of work have performed or that was performed under my direction.

* examine all of relationship or actions which could be legitimately interpreted as a conflict of interest by clients, officials, the public or peers. In any instance where I have a financial or personal interest in the activities with which they are directly or indirectly involved, I will make a full disclosure of that interest to my employer, client or other affected parties.

• not engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud deceit or misrepresentation or discrimination.

• not accept fees wholly or partially contingent on the client’s desired result where that desired result conflicts with my professional judgement (Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice for Environmental Professionals, National Association of Environmental Professionals)

But unfortunately in Sri Lanka many EIA consultants do not practice these ethics.

How to secure the credibility

The EIA process in Sri Lanka should be streamlined to give credibility to the process. Attitudes of the politicians should be changed to give proper recognition at the first place. EIA should be treated as a development tool and not only as a negative impact forecast. The EIAs should be invited in the early stages of the project cycle before the involvement of regional politicians to the project. Mass scale EIAs such as strategic Environmental Assessment should be accepted to the NEA for the purpose of developing regions and sectors such as wildlife, energy, highway etc.

Policy level EIAs should be introduced to study the pros and cons of new policies.

Reduction of the costs is imperative. Generation of the first hand data is expensive and for the reduction of cost data bases should be developed to get more recent data in each subject. Detailed country profiles are very important. Master scale EIAs will reduce the need to identify several alternatives.

Also the data which we need to understand the project implications should be limited to the essential. For example, How many T.Vs in the area or how many people have bicycles are not necessary at all for a prawn culture project. It should be noted that scoping meeting can be organized to be at the proposed site and alternative sites by which they can easily avoid studying unsuitable alternatives.

A uniform EIA approach is essential. A report does not need to be thousand of pages or volumes and it should be limited to a readable size. The competition among the EIA consultants should not be to increase the size of the document but to prepare a better one.

The EIA consultants should follow the code of ethics and there should be a system of black listing the violators. Semi-qualified consultants should be discouraged.

Regular EIA training in preparation and public participation are imperative. Politicians, decision makers, developers and public should be educated on the importance.

There is an immediate need of building the institutional capacity. More active EIA unit within the CEA should be developed and the expertise on natural resources management, approval writing, monitoring and evaluation and also enforcement capacity is vital for this division. All the environmental Cells should be developed by providing environmental educated professionals and not with the officers who has very limited knowledge on EIA provision of the NEA. Efficient decision making is vital to keep the EIA process viable in the long run.

Concluded

About the author E.C.T. Candappa was one of Sri Lanka's been feature writers in the mid-fifties till the seventies. He was an outstanding journalist at Lake House and distinguished himself as a reporter and feature writer. He is now domiciled in Australia but still very much interested in his country of origin. He visited Sri Lanka last year and interviewed many of the personalities featured in this book.

Continued from yesterday

Inspector Newton Perera returned.

Then, before Amerasinghe’s incredulous eyes, the High Priest drew a wad of currency notes from the folds of his saffron coloured robes, that colour being symbolic of a mendicant.

Having extracted a few notes of a high denomination and placing his plump hands over them caressingly for a few moments, he gave them to the Police Inspector with the alarming instruction that he purchase some cartridges.

Amerasinghe, exercising the utmost restraint, noted this transaction in shocked silence.

What was this all about? he wondered.

There was a dreamlike quality in what was happening. Why, why did they want to do all this in his house in his presence? What was the precise relationship between the four visitors in relation to this transaction? Their very silence on the matter was menacing. They were all participants in a common, deadly undertaking. But what was it?

The inspector’s role was puppet-like with Buddharakkita pulling the strings. He left, once again, in Amerasinghe’s car, this time without even asking his permission.

Almost immediately the others left in Buddharakkita’s Opal Kapitan.

Before he left, the chief monk Buddharakkita made another request; another odd one. Would Amerasinghe tell the inspector to call at the Kelaniya temple when he returned?

Why couldn’t the high priest have told the inspector himself?

The final curious event of the evening occurred. Amerasinghe’s car was brought back by his chauffeur. But of the inspector or the cartridges there was no sign.

The day’s deeds had disturbed his digestion and filled him with flatulence. He instructed his wife to have some garlic boiled for him.

Immediately before retiring, he crushed the boiled cloves in the water in which it had been boiled and drank it, chewing on the pieces that remained.

In a few minutes he belched into the night’s oblivion.

Chapter 6
The dark stocky man exuded affluence in every manner. He was dressed in an expensive pin-striped, terylene short-sleeved shirt and imported, American Dacron trousers. His shoes were of patent leather and pointed after the fashion of the time.

His face was flushed even under his black skin after a heavy night’s drinking in one of Colombo’s best known clubs. He had also been gambling, but cautiously. His eyes were swollen and bloodshot and his body exuded alcoholic fumes. His straight black hair was sleeked back and shone with brilliantine. He had his hair trimmed every Saturday afternoon at the local barber shop. They never kept him waiting. The radio was knocked off upon his arrival and a respectful silence was observed while his hair was trimmed. He trimmed his pencil thin moustache himself, daily.

On his left hand he wore a heavy gold ring with nine precious stones, termed the Navaratna, set in it. It was considered a good luck charm. And, when he smiled, one gold-capped tooth glittered.

At this precise moment Ossie Corea was not smiling. He was standing besides his car, a green Opal Kapitan, parked on the street in Kotahena, a suburb of Colombo where his parents lived. He was waiting to escort his parents to Mass, it being a Sunday, to the local parish church which happened to be the metropolitan cathedral dedicated to St Lucy. The smoke from his filter-tipped Gold Flake cigarette spiralled about him and floated away. Although his business, he was a toddy renter, prompted that it would be more convenient to reside close to his tavern fifteen kilometres away, he contrived to attend the Sunday obligation with filial devotion regularly, unless something urgent, like the murder of a rival, prevented him.

He stepped out of his car as his parents came out of the house. He opened the door for them, shut it gently and returned to the driver’s seat. He then started the car, and as he pressed the accelerator, the slight bulge of a .38 pistol under the carpet met the pointed end of his shoe comfortingly. He liked to be prepared for any contingency, for such was the nature of his lifestyle.

He dropped his parents at the main entrance of the cathedral, parked the car and found his way to a rear pew in St Joseph’s wing, where, as a schoolboy he had attended services with other scholars.

Other worshippers knew who he was and they sensed his arrival before they saw him. His corpulence, his perfumed hair and the slight squeak of his shoes made his presence palpable in a disturbing way. He bided his time inside the church until the priest ascended the pulpit for the sermon.

Ossie Corea, along with half a dozen other men, stepped out into the sunshine, lit cigarettes and started reading the Sunday newspapers which they had purchased from a row of paper boys outside.

They knew they could be free for at least fifteen minutes, long enough to finish a cigarette, glance at the front page, look at the sports results and check the horoscope for the week. After the sermon – they kept half an eye on the pulpit – they trooped back to continue with the Mass like good Catholics.

Ossie Corea would have threatened to throw a hand bomb into the home of anyone who suggested that he was not a good Catholic. Like many others he considered himself a freethinker when in fact he was a loose thinker. He worshipped at Buddhist and Hindu shrines or wherever there was the possibility of obtaining a favour. And Ossie Corea knew that he could do with a little bit of supernatural help to get him out of some tight spots.

One custom to which he adhered, a custom followed by many Buddhists and Hindus, was to drive down to Kataragama in the south of the island, a shrine popular with millions, whenever he bought himself a new car. He had done the same with the Opal Kapitan. He was careful to ensure that it was any other colour but cream.

Ossie Corea’s brushes with danger had begun at a time when he had been an Excise Inspector. This was among the most dangerous of jobs in the public sector. Excise Inspectors were required to ensure that all who manufactured liquor conformed with State regulations and paid excise dues systematically.

The State, which was secular only in name, not only permitted the manufacture and sale of hard liquor in a predominantly and vocally Buddhist country, but saw nothing wrong in supporting it and exploiting it for the sake of reaping vast sums of revenue through it.

There were many good Buddhists who were engaged in one or several aspects of the liquor trade. Many were at the peak. They were the renters. They were the ones who made the biggest profit. There was also a flourishing business in the illicit manufacture and sale of liquor. Some of it was nearly as good as the State manufactured product. A lot of moonshine was nearly lethal.

Excise Inspectors were called upon to keep a watchful eye on the innumerable ways in which the State could be defrauded. But who could inspect the inspectors all the time?

As with the Police force honest inspectors were often found floating down rivers in advanced states of decomposition, or their bloated bodies were found in jungles with bullet holes in the backs of their heads.

It was a game of survival. Ossie Corea was one of the survivors. At forty, in spite of the dissolute ways that he had led, he felt youthful. He was still unmarried and had no responsibilities in the usually understood sense. He had a servant boy to cook for him whenever he had meals at his residence. He enjoyed the company of close friends and was generous with his time and money towards them. For the rest, he kept himself in a continuous state of availability whenever and wherever danger called.

He had a passion for firearms. He owned far more than was necessary for his personal security. In his home he had stashed away an array of knives and daggers, all well- greased and wrapped, a 12-bore single barrelled gun, a 12-bore double barrelled gun, and several 12-bore five-shot repeaters. He assiduously cultivated the friendship of Police officers, especially inspectors.

And Newton Perera was one of his close friends.

After the Mass was concluded, Ossie Corea left the wing of the cathedral not in a hurry like the rest but waiting considerately for the women and children to leave offering, here a helping hand to an elderly parishioner, there a word of caution to a woman with a surgical patch over one eye.

"Kavanam."

Take care. Good advice which he never failed to take himself.

Finally he went out, out into the sunshine of a Sunday filled with earthly grace and celestial glory. He found his parents already standing beside his car. He apologised to them and opened the door. He sat in the driver’s seat, felt for the revolver with the toe cap of his shoe, gunned the engine and drove away, as they say in vulgar parlance, like a demon leaving black clouds of noxious carbon monoxide behind him.

(c) E. C. T. Candappa

Continued on tomorrow