President's recommendations disregarded in awarding central expressway project

COLOMBO (News 1st) - Since it’s inception the construction of the Central Expressway has come under strong criticism and has been marred by many irregularities. On many instances News 1st revealed where the government departed from due procedure when implementing the Central Expressway project. Following the request made by the Road Development Authority to the Japanese Special Envoy requesting to make three recommendations each for the construction and consultation work on the Central Expressway, Japan presented three contractors. However, due to the lack of experience on road constructions, two bids were disqualified and Taisei Corporation was selected. Taisei failed to provide a bid security and was therefore deemed unfit for the project. Thereafter, following a request made to the Japanese ambassador’s office a fourth bid was made, this time from Fujita Corp. And since Fujita was also deemed unfit for the project, the construction reverted to Taisei Corp. However President Maithripala Sirisena in his observation dated the 15th of May 2017 stated that the proposed action under item no. 07 of Cabinet Committee on Economic Management meeting held on the 3rd of May 2017, does not comply with the principles embodied in the public procurement procedure. The President then recommended that this matter should be taken into consideration by the CCEM and the Ministry of Higher Education and Highways. But, disregarding the recommendations made by the Head of state, the relevant officials awarded the contract to Taisei Corp. Commercial loans were also obtained from the Tokyo Mitsubishi bank with high-interest rates.

A question arises as to who benefitted from these actions.