The Lotus Tower in Colombo was declared open last Monday (16) evening. Following that, the speech delivered by the President during the opening ceremony has become the hottest topic in social media at present. It is a commonly accepted fact that the President of the country declares things without any doubt on the guarantee that the information and facts provided by his advisors are correct. But the information now being revealed shows that his statement made about payments pertaining to the tower is solely based on misinformation. I still wonder from whom the President got such information and why he made such a serious allegation in public without clarifying the facts. However, in my opinion, such horrendous actions would undermine both the main institutional structure and the politics of our country. I thought of making this issue the subject of this week’s column as this political game loaded with many falsehoods, which commenced in 2015, has caused immense destruction to this country by now. The focus of this discussion/issue is the Lotus Tower project which commenced construction in 2012. I am not aware of where or through whom the proposal for this project originated. From what I gather, this project emerged as one of the major developmental interventions within the social and political space of our country following the 2010 general election. At present, there is a debate over the fact that there was some imbalance in the decision pertaining to which development programmes were more suitable to be initiated within that particular social/political moment. Some see that imbalance as an issue due to the priority given to improve infrastructure facilities in the country. Unsubstantiated claims backfire Nevertheless, in my understanding, one of the major challenges confronted by the Government in 2010 was to restore infrastructure that was devastated and not given due attention for more than three decades due to the civil war in the country. It is my point of view that the previous Government deserves to be appreciated rather than being served allegations and criticism for accepting that challenge. However, in reality, the total opposite took place, as the entire 2015 presidential election campaign was centred on slanderous and false statements on such infrastructure development projects. In this context, it is not wrong to state that the President’s statement at the opening of the Lotus Tower on Monday was an extension of this same falsified political system that existed since 2015. As per the facts mentioned in the President’s speech, there are three main parties involved in this project. The Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (TRC) representing the Sri Lankan Government, CEIEC (China National Electronic Import and Export Corporation), and ALIT (Aerospace Long-March International Trade Co. Ltd.) from China had entered the agreement for this joint venture. As per the President’s statement, the Government of Sri Lanka had already paid Rs. 2 billion as an advance to ALIT, after which it had disappeared, causing the Sri Lankan Government to suffer a great loss. There is no need to specifically mention that this is a real loss for the country, if what he states is correct. However, on the same day the President made this statement, the former Director General of the TRC said that no such payment had been made to the company and that this statement was totally based on falsified information. In addition, the comments of many people on social media platforms show that such irresponsible actions have even undermined the position of the Head of State. This incident also indicates that the crisis has increased to the point where the leaders of the 2015 political movement too are falling prey to their own fabrications. In fact, if the President’s statement was based on actual facts, the first step by the Government should be to carry out a special inquiry into the matter and bring those who incurred a financial loss to the country to book. However, without taking any such action or uttering a single word on this for four-and-a-half years, blabbering something out of context at a time when the official tenure of the Government has almost come to an end has made the President and the Government lose the last bit of respect they had, if at all anything was remaining. After carefully looking at what has transpired in the last four-and-a-half years, it is not wrong to say that the broader political campaign of January 2015 is related to this incident as well. Bias against previous Govt. The sole purpose of the political process which commenced from January 2015 was to question all the development projects initiated by the previous Government. It is clear that the ultimate objective of that group was not only to question such projects, but also to create some kind of doubt within society on the need and success of these development projects by fabricating misinformation related to them. Some leading figures in this group were either professors of literature or famous translators and authors. Thus, they have a natural talent in fabricating rhetoric related to social and political issues. In fact, one can question whether they actually thought that engaging in politics meant fabricating fiction about social/political issues, as their profession entails authoring fictions. I am not trying to prove that the Lotus Tower project is the best model among the development projects carried out during that time or that it’s the most essential development-oriented intervention; there is nothing wrong in saying that this project as a state-owned enterprise has been subjected to various financial issues since its inception. In fact, the current requirement in the country is not leaders who waste time on grieving about corruption and issues related to development initiatives, but leaders who can convert this type of public investment into strong business ventures. It is a well-known fact that following this Government being elected in 2015, we as a country were subjected to demurrage payments as many development projects such as the Port City and Lotus Tower could not be completed in due time. This is the ultimate result of this Government’s mode of intervention in development projects which were initiated by the previous Government. The current Government looks at any such project through a doubtful lens and hence, their intervention is always based on suspicion. However, it is public money utilised to pay demurrages for the time they spent on clearing such baseless suspicions. As far as I know, the Port City project carried out with Chinese aid, the road expansion project of the section of road from Colombo to the Katunayake Expressway carried out with Japanese aid, and the Lotus Tower project are some examples where we had to make demurrage payments. One of the key tasks of the next government is to enact a law to collect such demurrage payments from those who are responsible for deliberately postponing the completion of these projects. In January 2015, the political process commenced as a parody and after four years turned into a disaster with the rise of Islamic extremist terrorism. Last but not least, statements such as the one made at the opening of the Lotus Tower and several others indicate that it is already becoming a major comedy. (Dr. Charitha Herath is a senior lecturer of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Peradeniya) photo saman abesiriwardana