COLOMBO: Rauff Hakeem, the leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, accused Bimal Rathnayake in Parliament on Saturday of holding up the Indian-funded reconstruction of Kankesanthurai harbour for two years. He also said the minister seemed upset that the project was now going ahead.
“Two years have been wasted,” Mr. Hakeem said, addressing Mr. Rathnayake. “The delay in building the Kankesanthurai harbour is because of you.”
Mr. Rathnayake, the Leader of the House and Minister of Transport, Highways and Urban Development, reacted angrily. He said he had not delayed the project “in any way.” He challenged Mr. Hakeem to “straighten his backbone” and state the allegation firmly instead of offering what he called gossip in the House.
The exchange came on the second day of debate on the 2027 budget. It brought into Parliament an accusation that Mr. Rathnayake has faced in the north for months: that while he held the ports portfolio, he obstructed the development of Kankesanthurai port, known as KKS, and of Jaffna International Airport at Palaly. India has offered to pay the full cost of rebuilding the port. More than two and a half years after that offer, the agreement has still not been signed.
Mr. Hakeem said the agreement was now due to be signed next month and that he expected work to begin after that. He said Mr. Rathnayake had acted against the project and had lost the ports ministry because of it.
He said that whatever the government said in public, its decisions were made at Pelawatte, the headquarters of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, the party at the core of the governing National People’s Power. As an example, he said Tilvin Silva, the JVP’s general secretary, had been received in India with the honours usually given to a visiting prime minister.
Mr. Hakeem also urged the government to agree to a bridge linking Sri Lanka with Rameswaram in India. “We are asking that not only the Kankesanthurai port but also the Rameswaram bridge be built,” he said. “That is good for our country’s future economy. You have not agreed to that either.”
In his reply, Mr. Rathnayake said: “I completely reject Rauff Hakeem’s claim that I am the reason the Kankesanthurai port development has been delayed for the past two years. I serve this country with complete honesty.”
He said the government carried out every project for the good of the country. “We set aside what the country does not need, and we are firmly carrying out what it does need,” he said. He pointed to the budget speech, in which, he said, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake had referred to the wind power agreement with the Adani Group and to an agreement with a logistics company connected with the Colombo Port City.
“No one can get anything done in this country by putting money in our pockets,” Mr. Rathnayake said. “Such things may have been done by the government in which Rauff Hakeem was a minister, but that cannot be done with us.”
Mr. Hakeem, a member of Parliament for Kandy, was himself Minister of Ports Development and Shipping in the United National Front government formed in 2001.
Mr. Rathnayake said he and the ports minister would carry out the work needed at KKS, and that Mr. Hakeem “need not worry” about it.
The Minister of Ports and Civil Aviation, Anura Karunathilaka, then intervened in support of his colleague. He said Mr. Rathnayake had taken substantial steps on the KKS project while it was under his responsibility, and that this had made it easier for him to take the work forward. He said people like Mr. Hakeem should act responsibly and stop making childish statements.
Kankesanthurai has operated as a commercial port since 1950. It lies 56 nautical miles from the Indian coast and is the Sri Lankan end of a passenger ferry service to Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu. India first agreed to finance the final stages of its rehabilitation through a $45.27 million line of credit signed in January 2018. When revised estimates pushed the cost above that amount, the project stalled. In March 2024, India’s high commissioner, Santosh Jha, announced that India would instead fund the full development of the port with a grant of $61.5 million. The Indian High Commission now puts the grant at $65 million and says the memorandum of understanding needed to formalize it is still under negotiation.
At the start of this month, Mr. Karunathilaka said the negotiations had reached their final stage and that the signing was waiting on approval from the cabinets of both countries. He said the project had faced no setbacks.
Mr. Rathnayake oversaw ports until a cabinet reshuffle in October 2025, when he lost the ports and civil aviation portfolios and was named Minister of Transport, Highways and Urban Development. Members of the JVP have told Jaffna Monitor that his removal from the portfolio was linked to his resistance to developing Palaly and Kankesanthurai.
