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Work on a Sri Lankan port’s expansion led by the Adani Group is progressing as scheduled, a top local official said, even as the fate of $553 million in American funding for the project remains uncertain following the indictment of the Indian conglomerate’s executives in the US.
Construction at the Colombo West International Terminal remains ongoing, with phase one of the project still set for completion in early 2025, said Sirimevan Ranasinghe, chairman of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority, a minority shareholder in the project.
“We are continuing as per our agreement,” Ranasinghe told Bloomberg News. He said the US financing had not been finalized and declined to comment further on its status, adding that it was up to the joint-venture company developing the project to secure financing.
The US International Development Finance Agency, or DFC, committed to the $553 million loan last year to help develop the Colombo transshipment port, a project majority-owned by a unit of Adani Group. The effort was widely seen as a push to help provide a counterweight to China’s massive infrastructure investments and curb Beijing’s influence in the region.
Following the US Department of Justice’s announcement of the indictment, the DFC said that it was still conducting due diligence on its loan commitment and no funding had been disbursed for the project. The Adani company involved in the port project, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd., wasn’t implicated in the indictment, the agency also said.
A DFC official said Tuesday that the agency was still actively assessing the ramifications of the DOJ’s indictment, and that it was committed to ensuring its partners keep up the highest standards of integrity and compliance.
Several high-profile overseas projects backed by the Adani conglomerate have been thrown into limbo following the US legal action against the Adani executives’ over their alleged involvement in a $250 million scheme to bribe Indian officials.
Kenya canceled $2.6 billion worth of airport and power transmission contracts the tycoon’s conglomerate had pitched for, while France’s TotalEnergies SE, an equal partner in Indian gas distributor Adani Total Gas Ltd., said it wouldn’t make new financial contributions to the conglomerate for now.
--With assistance from Anusha Ondaatjie.
(Updates with fresh DFC comment in sixth paragraph)
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