Mattala airport has no oil tank, violates int’l law - Ravi K

The Mattala airport does not have an oil tank in keeping with international aviation regulations the, UNP charged yesterday.Senior UNP MP Ravi Karunanayake, addressing a news conference in Colombo, said that the oil tank was required to have a minimum capacity of one million litres, but the Mattala airport, which was declared open,
by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, with much fanfare on Monday, was being serviced by three bowsers with a total capacity of 100,000 litres.

To make matters worse, Fly Dubai had left after being filled up with 90,000 litres of fuel, he said while challenging the Aviation Minister to disprove his allegation.

The Rajapaksa regime has a history of opening half completed projects just to impress the world. In most cases, including the Hambantota Port, the so called benefits to the masses had not materialized. Instead, they had become white elephants built with high interest commercial loans, resulting in the debt burden rising to unprecedented levels, the MP observed.

The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and Ceylon Electricity Board had incurred a total loss of Rs.170 billion last year, Karunanayake said adding that none of the pledges to subsidise transport costs had been met, even though nearly four years had lapsed since the war was over.

While the government continued to paint a rosy picture, Senior Minister D. E. W. Gunasekera had admitted that the two state banks were bankrupt, he observed.