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An official from the Sri Lanka Ports Authority said that $ 50 million worth of contracts had been signed with China. (File)
Sri Lanka on Thursday signed two multi-million dollar contracts with Chinese companies for the modernization of its port, at the center of a political break that has raised doubts about the legitimacy of the government and the legality
The island, which is in debt, has long been a goal of the ambitious system of Belts and Roads infrastructure in Beijing to connect China to countries crossing Asia and beyond, while India was also seeking agreements to counter China's influence. ] But a political crisis triggered by the replacement of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe by President Maithripala Sirisena by Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was sacked by parliament, has raised doubts about who can legitimately make decisions in the country.
The new government and the Wickremesinghe party said that any decision of Rajapaksa's cabinet was illegal.
An official of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority, a public administration. He told Reuters that he had signed two contracts with Chinese companies worth more than $ 50 million on Thursday after the deals were approved by Rajapaksa's disputed government last week.
One of Rajapaksa's cabinet ministers, who requested anonymity, also confirmed that the agreements had been approved by the cabinet, while documents seen by Reuters showed that the agreements needed to be approved at the meeting.
Political instability and economic malaise have raised questions about Sri Lanka's ability to service an important foreign debt.
The contract is for a $ 32 million project to strengthen the capacity of the Jaya Container Terminal (JCT) managed by the state in Colombo with China Harbor Engineering Company, and to develop the project. another contract worth $ 25.7 million for the purchase of three cranes at JCT Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. for the same project., According to an official of the authority ports.
When asked about the agreements, the former government spokesman Wickremesinghe government, Rajitha Senaratne, told Reuters: "We will have to re-examine it definitively.They do not have the legal authority to decide."
The head of the Ports Authority said that calls for tenders had been announced in state-owned newspapers, as is the norm in Sri Lanka, and that they had been sent to a cabinet. A contracting committee appointed several months ago.
India, which accounts for about 80 percent of Colombo's transhipment activities, has expressed concern over the proliferation of Chinese projects in Colombo.
New Delhi was pushing Sri Lanka for the award of an estimated $ 1 billion contract for a second container terminal operated overseas in Colombo.
But this agreement was the subject of a dispute between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe just before his ouster, in which Sirisena reportedly said the country could not not give more of its badets to strangers.
Political instability and economic malaise have raised questions about Sri Lanka's ability to service a large foreign debt intended to finance reconstruction at the end of the civil war in 2009. It owes about $ 8 billion official data show in China, including state-owned enterprises and banks,
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