Due process not followed when Avant Garde was given ‘sensitive’ armoury contract
Just as a massive police investigation got underway on private security firm Avant Garde’s floating armoury storage of weapons of international vessels, the shipping industry said it was awaiting the new government’s decision on whether this work would revert back to Sri Lanka Navy (SLN).
The arms storage at the BMICH
The business of providing storage for weapons was transferred to Avant Garde questionably without a due tender process, an issue that was widely reported in the Business Times (BT) in 2012.
“The standard transparent practice in the ports and shipping sector is to call for at least three bids and then make a suitable choice. In this case it was handed over to a company without this due process,” a shipping analyst said.
A Business Times report on August 19, 2012 headlined “Dispute with Britain over Sea Marshals” and a story dated August 26, 2012 and headlined “Navy assignment handed over to private company” spoke in detail about these issues, far more than what other media reported at the time. Avant Garde officials were on ‘cloud nine’ with the company’s powerful links to the hierarchy of the Defence Ministry so much so that there was a level of intimidation and coercion when the media approached them for clarification on the issues that emerged at the time, nearly three years ago.
This week, a top company official spoke to the Business Times. His comment is elsewhere in the story.
“Apart from everything else including security implications in disclosing details of the armoury, etc, the fact remains – and which the public had a right to know even today –as to why tenders were not called for a contract where the Navy was handing over this ‘delicate’ assignment to a private party,” the shipping analyst said.
This, he believes, is akin to the violation of ARs and FRs by the Defence Ministry is opening a special account where proceeds from land sales were deposited, an issue that has drawn an animated to-and-fro between the former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the Government.
The analyst said it was not only strange but also amusing over the police expressing surprise over the armoury after it was ‘discovered’ this week. “It was no secret that this armoury was run by private security agencies and this has been widely reported since 2012 and also questioned by the media and the industry as to the lack of transparency in that deal. It was amusing to see the police scrambling to unravel what should not be a mystery,” he said.
The BT reported that the industry was perturbed by the previous government’s decision where the operations of storage of weapons in fighting sea piracy for international vessels by the SLN was handed over jointly to Rakna Aarakshaka Lanka (RAL), a security firm attached to the Defence Ministry and Avant Garde, a private firm with powerful links to the ministry hierarchy.
Earlier vessels plying the East West sea lane route would stop over at Galle or Colombo to pick up their weapons stored at the SLN armouries before heading for other destinations crossing pirated waters.
These operations constitute on average a revenue of US$2.4 million per month, industry sources claimed explaining that since there were about 700 vessel transfers carried out per month the charges carried out for the deposit or removal of armoury amounted to $3500 per transaction.
In 2012 the vessel operators were reportedly perturbed by the then government’s decision to hand over the operations to a private firm.
This week, SLN spokesman Commander Kosala Warnakulasuriya told the BT that though previously these operations were carried out by SLN due to the police investigation the arms were not in naval custody, and it was not possible to state whether these operations would be handed back to SLN. Currently operations were ongoing, industry officials said, adding that even if this business is handed back to SLN it would have to be carried out in a phased out manner since the ship’s agents had already signed agreements with RAL based on the authorisation of the Defence Ministry at the time.
The floating armoury under investigation was located initially 12 nautical miles off Galle and Avant Garde was even at that time based in six other locations elsewhere around the globe. At the time it had two operating floating storages off Fujairah and off Suez; in addition to Oman and Djibouti the company also has two land-based storages in Mombassa and Dar Es Salaam.
The BT quoted Commander Warnakulasuriya in 2012 as stating that RAL was involved in leasing out weapons from the Defence Ministry to vessels in addition to sea marshals. At the time there were about 70 companies registered with SLN that were carrying out storage facilities.
Lately, after the police said it had detected the vessel it was noted that the industry which was previously providing simply the details of the sea marshalls’ identification was now requested to submit a copy of the passport, possibly due to the need to regulate the work, industry sources said.
| Armoury drama Top Avant Garde official got Rs. 3.5 mln per month, company says Avant Garde Chairman Major Nissanka Senadipathi told the Business Times that the company is under investigation but operations are continuing. |