A spokesman for the Metallurgical Corporation of China Ltd. (MCC), which is the main contractor which has undertaken to construct the Outer Circular Highway Phase III, firmly rejected certain media reports over the weekend alleging that the project's costs have been inflated.

The spokesman said that MCC which is the contractor for the Colombo-Katunayake Expressway is one of the top ten global contractors and hence highly treasures its reputation. It has also completed all its contracts world-wide to high quality standards with its professional knowhow. The company has always honored its contract with those who have hired it.

Pointing out to the Outer Circular Highway Northern Section II, the spokesman said the particular contract was signed on 22 February 2013 and not on 31 January 2013 as mentioned in the news report. Also, the loan agreement with Exim Bank was for 494 million USD ant not 66.7 Billion Rupees (520million USD).

“The cost of this project is reasonable and competitive when compared to other sections of the Outer Circular Highway. The contract was reached after many rounds of very hard negotiations between MCC and the Road Development Authority (RDA) of Sri Lanka. MCC respects the RDA negotiators' professionalism and loyalty to their country. Sri Lankan negotiators tried their best to cut the cost of the project in order to save every single rupee for their country,” the spokesman said.

He also-pointed out that it is unrealistic and unscientific to compare the costs of this project with that of Colombo Katunayake Expressway (CKE) in a simple way since the geographical conditions and scope of these two projects are completely different and the rates for material and manpower have heavily increased during the past two years.

The initial design of this Project was made by the RDA with the objective of avoiding high costs and delays due to land acquisition as the project would cross a large area of marsh and swampland. However this design concept has proved to be reasonable, economic and efficient by the professional institutions of the RDA and China's EXIM Bank which provided the loan after a very detailed evaluation.

The MCC honors its contract with the Sri Lankan Government and the RDA and hopes that they too would do the same, the spokesman firmly reiterated.