The Rajapaksas are facing perhaps their greatest legal and political reckoning. Let the investigations go wherever the evidence takes them. But Hambantota and Monaragala belong to Sri Lanka, not to a political family.
For two decades it was almost impossible to separate Hambantota from the Rajapaksas.
The port, Mattala airport, highways, cricket stadium and other enormous investments transformed a previously neglected part of the country while simultaneously becoming monuments to a political dynasty. Some worked. Some struggled. Some became symbols of questionable economics and extravagant political ambition.
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But there is a danger in confusing the two.
The Rajapaksas can be investigated. Their decisions can be examined. Contracts can be scrutinised. Where evidence establishes wrongdoing, prosecutions should follow. Where public money was wasted, the country deserves answers.
None of that changes the geography.
Hambantota Port remains where it is. Mattala Airport remains where it is. The expressway already reaches the South. Monaragala remains one of Sri Lanka’s potentially important agricultural and industrial hinterlands.
Those assets do not belong to Mahinda Rajapaksa, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Basil Rajapaksa or Namal Rajapaksa.
They belong, directly or indirectly, to Sri Lanka. That distinction matters enormously.
A new Government understandably wants to distance itself from the excesses associated with its predecessors. But development policy cannot become an exercise in political archaeology where projects associated with yesterday’s rulers are neglected simply because nobody wants to be photographed completing them.
The question should be brutally simple. Can the asset make money, create jobs or improve people’s lives?
If Mattala can become commercially useful, make it useful. If Hambantota Port can attract industry, logistics and manufacturing, pursue them aggressively. If Monaragala can supply agriculture, processing, renewable energy and industry into that southern economic corridor, build the connections necessary to make it happen.
And if a project genuinely has no economic justification, stop pouring money into it.
That is not Rajapaksa economics or NPP economics. It is elementary economics.
There is an even larger issue here. Hambantota and Monaragala contain hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans who had nothing whatsoever to do with decisions made in Colombo’s Cabinet rooms.
They cannot become collateral damage in somebody else’s political reckoning. Investigate the Rajapaksas without fear.
Prosecute wrongdoing without favour. But develop Hambantota and Monaragala without prejudice.
Governments come and governments go. Districts cannot.
Be that as it may.
