Sri Lanka, home to the world’s empty Airport Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport and which recently handed over the southern sea port of Hambantota to China after struggling to pay Chinese debts has increased the price of petrol by 130% following advice from IMF.
[ATTACH=full]170091[/ATTACH]
Thanks for underlining the keywords. Now I don’t have to squint, or use my monocle.
Auto-rickshaw kama yangu tu!
IMF ndio wanasema tuongeze bei yetu pia?
That was a project gone terribly wrong for Sri Lanka…
.
[I]The story as to how this airport rose and fell is a dive into a quagmire of national politics, geopolitical maneuvering, raw corruption, and the hunger of China to invest in massive infrastructure projects along what has subsequently been dubbed the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.
It was long understood that Sri Lanka needed a second international airport. Traffic through Colombo was getting too heavy and the country was in the active process of trying to develop its hinterlands to curb the social and economic disparity that was growing between the nation’s capital and everywhere else. At a cost of $209 million, $190 of which coming in the form of loans from China, Mattalla was selected as the site for the country’s number two air transport hub.
However, the master plan was much broader than just this airport alone. The idea was that Hambantota would be transformed into Sri Lanka’s second most prestigious city. It would become a place built on international trade and commerce, that would be full of joint ventures, FDI, and everything a modern city could desire. In addition to the international airport, there would be a gargantuan, $1.4 billion-plus multi-stage deep sea port, a large industrial zone, a massive conference center, a world-class cricket stadium, housing developments, and a hotel and tourism area all held together by some of the best new highways in the country.
“It was the government itself that felt that if you want to really get it off the ground you have to bring all of these elements together in a very ambitious way,” Dushni Weerakoon, a researcher at the Colombo-based Institute of Policy Studies, explained the logic behind the project. “They were going to put up off-shore a kind of mixed development project, so you fly in and everything is there that you want: the conference facilities, the golf courses . . .”
The fact is that this area didn’t have any semblance of a head start, being little more than a series of small fishing villages and forests, didn’t seem to faze its builders. This city of the future would be constructed, brick by brick, up from scratch. The reasons why Sri Lanka chose such an unlikely place for this new urban conurbation, rather than further developing an already established city, was the simple fact this was the home region of then-president Mahinda Rajapaksa.
“The airport, I feel the location is wrong,” said Deshal de Mel, a senior economist at Hayleys Plc in Colombo. “So I don’t see that being viable any time soon. To have an international airport you need to have a resident population, you need to have attractions to make foreigners want to come there, and you need some commercial infrastructure. They just don’t have it in Hambantota.”
Hambantota was to become the shining achievement of the Rajapaksa regime, and the nomenclature of the area’s big projects do not conceal this fact in any way. Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport is complemented by the nearby Magampura Mahinda Rajapaksa Deep Sea Port as well as the Mahinda Rajapaksa International Cricket Stadium. This was a president who for nearly a decade virtually ruled as a dictator, appointing his family members and friends to positions of power and keeping the country in a very firm grasp. At that time, it seemed only natural that he would name some of the country’s biggest undertakings after himself.[/I]
And yet, the price is lower than here
Gasoline ni 87.23 bob
Diesel ni 69.41 bob
Walikuwa na maisha mzuri
IMF wameskuma Uhuru to agree to reverse the law on interest rate cap. I hope he doesn’t do it.
President Kibaki stayed away from IMF for good reason.
Same case here beginning september. Fuel prices will go up by 16% after VAT is imposed to pay the eurobond loan. Tough times ahead
yenyewe, but still that huge rise will shock the economy sana
Kibaki didn’t have time for western diplomats either, they used to complain that the man was inaccessible.
Yes Baba Jimmy’s State House was not a toilet for people to enter all Willy Nilly. Even PM Raila needed an appointment I heard https://lp.vg/emoticons/smilielol.gif
IMF again. Everywhere IMF pokes their nose, things go haywire. I wish Kibaki had the energy to chase them away a second time.
I bet Mahinda Rajapaksa wondered where the passengers would come from, and, a voice from a maize plantation told him, “If you build it, they will come.”
io ndio trump aliita shithole countries. He was veeery right.
Lakini seriously the country has what major source of income. They got confortable in tea exports in the 80s wakasahau dunia ina-evolve. Theres is understandable. Hapa Kenya shida yetu inakuja but I guarantee you its that Dynamic Duo titanicduos fault!
IMF and World Bank play a key role in the macro-economics of developing countries. Remember the structural adjustment programs that resulted in severe cuts in government expenditures in key sectors in kenya, including the withdrawal of the famous university ‘boom’ money to students?