Construction of expressways

Transport, Highways and Urban Development Minister Bimal Rathnayake announced in Parliament this week plans for several expressway projects. These include the Kurunegala–Galgamuwa section of the Kurunegala–Dambulla Expressway and the Kahathuduwa–Ingiriya Expressway, work on which is slated to commence soon.

In addition to these, the Minister said President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has instructed officials to prepare plans for a proposed expressway from Katunayake to Chilaw, while also under consideration is an expressway network centred on Anuradhapura.

There is little argument that the Southern Expressway and the Katunayake Expressway have brought great benefits to the public, but it is known that highway development has also resulted in massive corruption and fraud, with money laundering allegations added to the dubious list.

Sri Lanka has a great network of roads, and most are in excellent condition except those in cities, which are often neglected. Roads in the outstations are solid for motoring for any vehicles, and there is no justification or urgency for new highways/expressways except for the completion of those that have already had much of the work done by now. Not all expressways will have adequate income that would at least meet the maintenance costs, while the damage to the environment will not justify such projects.

Take the case of the Matara/Hambantota (Mattala) stretch of the Southern Expressway, which was an unnecessary extension of this expressway. This section of the expressway generates lower income due to lower traffic volume. This 96-kilometre stretch of the expressway was built at a cost of around Rs. 225 billion, but the returns have been low compared with the Kottawa-Galle-Matara sections. This stretch was built despite opposition from environmental groups, given the ecologically sensitive nature of the area, and in the hope that the Mattala Airport would take off, but they have turned out to be liabilities, while those who got kickbacks are probably laughing all the way to the banks.

The NPP has started off with a bang on its anti-corruption drive but is facing allegations, especially in the procurement area, and with the sudden love to build more expressways, there are going to be questions raised as to whether there is any need for any more expressways for the country, especially given that the country's economy is far from stable.

Studies by the World Bank and other anti-corruption bodies have shown that mega infrastructure projects, including highways/expressways, open the doors to corruption, money laundering and fraud.

It has been found that road projects around the globe remain plagued by fraud, corruption, and collusion. The most common forms of wrongdoing in these cases are collusion among firms bidding on a project, and fraud and corruption in the execution of the resulting contract.

The substandard coal imports, which seem a clear case of corruption, have clearly put the Government on the back foot despite its repeated mantra of wanting to stop corruption. In addition to this, there have been questionable contracts awarded for procurements which have been well shielded by those in power, but the Auditor General has already flagged the coal import case and exposed major irregularities and procurement lapses in the coal case.

The fact that many corporate bigwigs are hovering around the President and the NPP is certainly not for the love of the country, but they are waiting to get their share when contracts are awarded for mega projects. Some of them now sit in Government departments and institutions, so expecting transparency will be futile.

This is why, when a Government announces mega projects such as expressways in a country where people are struggling to get their medicine from a Government hospital and school-going children are struggling to get three square meals a day and many are without a roof over their heads, there needs to be close scrutiny of such projects. The fact is that those in the NPP are not immune to the temptations of big money, and it won't take much time for them to go the Rajapaksa way of dreaming up airports next as development projects. The only difference will be they won't be putting their names on the plaques.