Mattala International is a joke; oil is brought from bowsers from Katunayaka -Ravi Karunanayake

Opposition Party M.P. Ravi Karunanayaka explains that Mattala International Airport which was opened last week is but a joke. At a meeting held with the media some days ago he had made the following comments: "Katunayaka Airport now is in a state that requires a fivefold development process. It is good that when it is in such a state that Mattala Airport too has been added for the purpose of doing good to the public.
But nobody says as to how airline services are to be operated here. The requisite of an international airport is to provide the facility of supplying fuel to airlines embarking there.

For this purpose, a facility of storing fuel on a large capacity should be available. But there is not much of a fuel storing capacity available in Mattala. By this time, 1 lakh litres of fuel could be stored there. That too is contained in two bowsers transported from Colombo.

This procedure is difficult to be rectified in Mattala in future. Because what is done at Katunayaka is that the stock of oil received at Sapugaskanda is refined and sent to Katunayaka either through pipelines or by train and is refined at Katunayaka and supplied to airlines.

This refining facility is available only at Katunayaka. Mattala does not have that facility. Now what is being done is the difficult process of sending refined oil to Mattala via bowsers or ships. This is a procedure which consumes a lot of time and incurs unnecessary expenditure. The Mattala Airport project is not something that has been based on a practical argument based on economcs. This is an international joke.