Lotus Tower: Sri Lanka’s 350-meter tall Lotus Tower is set to open in Colombo
Colombo Lotus Tower– Moving on now the 350-meter-tall Lotus tower is set to open this week in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo. The communications tower was built for an estimated 130 million dollars and financed using Chinese loans. Construction on the tower began in 2012.
On former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is the older brother of Sri Lanka has recently ousted President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The tower has been mired in corruption allegations since its construction began. The tower was built by the state-owned Colombo Lotus tower management company and the company’s CEO, Prasad Samarasinghe said that they have to open the tower Despite the controversy surrounding it because of huge maintenance costs.
Prasad Samarasinghe said:-
So anywhere in the world, this type of building, it’s an icon of the country, right? So you can’t recover. Well, when you take other countries also, you can’t recover quickly. So at least we have Nana model business model to run this place without the burden on the country again. So we’re in the middle of paying the loans and all of course this company cannot pay.”
Now the company hopes to rent out the office in the shop space including a revolving restaurant just below the observation deck. They also plan to open the tower’s observation deck to visitors from Thursday to one ticket sales to minimize losses here.
Sri Lanka has broadcasters allege that the structure cannot cover the island nor improve current transmissions they say it is of no use as a communications tower. Local media reportedly called the Lotus tower a towering story of pride and waste.
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Farmer President Mahinda Rajapaksa borrowed heavily from China for infrastructure projects. Chinese debt accounts for over 10% of Columbus’s $51 billion in external borrowings. The debt has been partially blamed for Sri Lanka’s economic crisis, Beijing has so far only offered additional loans instead of taking a cut on outstanding borrowings. From Sri Lankans view the tower is a reminder of the country’s financial problems.
