• Even IOC accepts they have no legal ownership to oil tanks

By Ajith Siriwardana and Yohan Perera  

Claiming that  oil tanks at Trincomalee had not been handed over to India through the Indo-Lanka Agreement as claimed by Energy Minister Udaya Gammanpila, National Peoples’ Power (NPP) MP Vijitha Herath yesterday urged the Government to reveal whether the oil tanks would be handed over to India under this Government.

He told parliament that it was regrettable that the Energy Minister was claiming that the oil tanks had been handed over to India completely when even the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) was claiming that they did not have the legal ownership to the oil tanks.  
The MP said Lanka IOC’s Managing Director Sham Bora had written to the Attorney General in Sri Lanka in 2017 requesting him to take steps to hand over the legal ownership of the oil tanks saying that they could not develop the oil tank without legal ownership.  
He said then Petroleum Minister Arjuna Ranatunga had obtained a Cabinet approval to hand over the oil tanks to India and added that however, no agreement was signed to that effect.  
“If the oil tanks had been handed over to India as claimed by Minister Gammanpila,why did then Minister Ranatunga have to seek Cabinet approval to hand them over,” he asked and said “It is a traitorous statement made by Minister Gammanpila to say that all the 100 oil tanks have been handed over to India. He should rectify his statement without misleading the country,” he said.  

The MP said it was true that the Sri Lankan Government had agreed to develop the oil tanks jointly with India and that letters had been shared with J.R. Jayewardene and Rajiv Gandhi in this regard and added that however, no legal agreement had been signed up to now.   “India wanted to include such a condition in the Indo-Lanka agreement as J.R. was planning to hand over the oil tanks to America,” he said.  

MP Herath said a permit had been issued to OIC to use oil tanks in 2003 by the committee appointed through a special Act in 2003 adding that it was not a legal agreement to hand over the ownership of the oil tanks.  
“According to the permit, a lease agreement should be signed with the OIC after six months. However, such an agreement has not been signed so far. In that sense, IOC has no legal ownership to the oil tanks,” he said.