The multibillionaire with his fingers in the Lankan pie

Adani Group Chairman and multibillionaire businessman Gautam Adani, is now vying for the second spot on the world’s richest individuals list. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he is currently just 6 billion dollars behind Jeff Bezos. 

The owner of America’s online retail giant Amazon saw his net worth drop to 149 billion, placed self-made billionaire Adani at this position owing to market volatility in the price of tech stocks. According to analysts, Adani aged 60, has quickly narrowed the wealth gap between himself and the other richest tycoons in the world because to the soaring share values of the firms that make up his group. 

This year the stock prices of Adani’s enterprises have increased more than double. Adani Enterprises and Adani Transmission are valued at over 400 times, while Adani Green Energy and Adani Total Gas trade at over 750 times profit. Only the seven listed companies of the Adani Group have seen gains in market capitalisation thus far this year, accounting for nearly 79% of all gains in India. 

This global, diversified corporation has commercial interests in power generation, renewable energy, and natural gas. While now making waves over international waters, one must not forget the recent splash made in the Bay of Bengal.

In August, Sri Lanka’s Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera announced that preliminary permission was given to two wind energy projects by the Adani Group. Wijesekara tweeted that two wind projects totalling 286 MW in Mannar and 234 MW in Pooneryn, with an investment of more than 500 million dollars, would receive provisional approval. 

Even with the contract to produce power in the northern shore given to Adani Group in 2021, and with the projects ownership being under the State-owned Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and the Sustainable Development Authority; these declarations were made, as suggested by some, to ease tensions between Sri Lanka’s foreign suitors. The Chinese monitoring vessel at Hambantota had been given entry.

Furthermore, some unions at the CEB opposed the proposal, as activists believe it was secretly negotiated between the administrations of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Mukesh who is a close associate of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Former CEB Chairman M.M.C. Fernando resigned as a result of the controversy after he testified before the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) that the former President had told him that Prime Minister Modi had put pressure on him to award a wind power project as such. 

In addition to the temporary clearance for the Adani group, Minister Wijesekera stated in another tweet that another 21 out of 46 projects that were postponed due to changes to the CEB Act will sign into power purchase agreements the following week. He also said that the grid clearing and transmission plans for 26 renewable energy initiatives that received provisional clearances will be accelerated. Adani Green Energy Ltd. shares in fact increased by 8.3% after Sri Lanka gave preliminary clearance on the projects.

Incidentally, Sri Lanka has eliminated competitive bidding over such tenders as it just changed its power law. At the time, the Opposition fiercely criticised the law, alleging that it had simply been changed to allow high-profile players like Adani to launch projects. A few months prior, the competition for a crucial port facility in Colombo, now the energy project is the Adani group’s second major contract in Sri Lanka. Following the unilateral cancellation by the Sri Lankan Government of the trilateral agreement to create the East container terminal at the same Colombo Port, the Adani group entered into the development of the West container terminal in the Port of Colombo.

Sri Lanka’s strategic tethering to the Adani success story cannot be brought to question by a nation on the brink of economic collapse. While regionally such investments are being carried out by the group, the true benefactor of the project needs to be critically examined without skimping on viability assessments. While keeping in mind the influence political powers extend towards Sri Lanka, another colony we cannot be.