Opening a new chapter in the Private Public Partnership history in Sri Lanka one of the largest sea food exporters in Sri Lanka TESS Group has come forward to reopen the abandoned Oluvil Fisheries Harbour in a joint venture with the Minister of Fisheries .
This will once again help to open up fisheries activities for people and help them open up their business once again after being stalled for nearly four years due to the closure of the harbor.
Credit for the opening of the harbor should also go to Chairman of Ministries Sectaries’ Union, Keerthi Sri Weerasinghe and Minister of Fisheries Douglas Devananda who promoted this project with TESS Group Chairman Shiran Fernando.
Fernando said that one of the major issues involving the harbour was the need to clear the sand dunes which were accumulated in the mouth of the harbor limiting access of vessels.
“We have invested Rs. 15 million to clear this sand and reopen the harbour. We are now planning to operate the fish processing plant which was never used to date.”
TESS was also one of the contractors of the Rs. 16 billion Danish funded Oluvil Harbour project and TESS has once again come forward to help open this harbour.
This closure resulted in the loss of over 25,000 livelihoods and around 200 fishing vessels were stuck in the harbour. Requests made to the Port Authority to remove the sand dune were to no avail and the fishing community hired lorries and tractors to take the fishing vessels from the Oluvil Fisheries,” Keerthi Sri Weerasinghe said.
