Who is watching Colombo Port City?

Sri Lanka has issued around 14,300 visas on the recommendation of the Colombo Port City Economic Commission, it was revealed at an October 8 hearing of the Committee of Public Finance (COPF) in parliament. It was also revealed that the Commission could not vouch for all those people.

This should not be a surprise given that the Commission's entire staff numbered 16. Those employees also evaluate investment applications and handle the other responsibilities of an agency promoting and regulating an international business center. In fact, it appears that the Commission might not even have a separate compliance team. This not only exposes institutional weakness of the Commission but also a potential national security threat.

Built on reclaimed land, Port City is being developed by a subsidiary of China Harbour Engineering Company. Its special economic zone is intended to attract service businesses, including financial firms, through tax concessions and easier access to foreign employees. The Commission, established under a 2021 law, approves businesses and helps them obtain permission from other state agencies.  

Businesses registered under the Port City framework can operate from approved premises elsewhere in Sri Lanka while construction proceeds. However, the Commission is not able to determine if these companies, scattered across different locations, were complying with their agreements. COPF members pointed out that the Commission needs inspectors to establish what happens inside these offices. They also asked the Commission how foreign companies, registered at the Port City, can obtain visas for their employees.

The Commission’s finance director, Ruwan Karunaratne, told the COPF that businesses must register with the Department of Immigration and Emigration before applying to bring in foreign workers. They then submit the workers’ documents to the Commission, which recommends entry. The workers must complete the visa requirements within 30 days of arriving in Sri Lanka. Karunaratne said employers must report monthly on their employees and provide their residential details. They must also notify the local police. Karunaratne said there have been lapses in reporting.

When COPF members asked Commission officials what steps are taken when someone entered under a Commission recommendation but fails to complete the subsequent requirements. Officials said violations of immigration law were Immigration's responsibility. But they could not provide proof that the two agencies routinely reconciled their records to identify these cases.

The lack of coordination between the Commission and the Department of Immigration is disconcerting. The Commission needs to know whether a person it recommended has obtained the required visa and remains employed by the sponsoring business. The Department of Immigration needs prompt notice when the employment ends or the company stops reporting. The COPF proceedings show that this does not take place at regular intervals.   

There have already been instances where those holding visas, issued based on the Commission’s recommendations, have got into legal trouble. In August 2025, the Commission announced that they suspended visa recommendations for two authorized businesses after five Chinese nationals affiliated with them were detained and deported. The five were stopped at the airport because they could not tell immigration officers what their employment in Sri Lanka would be. Officers attached to the Commission and the Department of Immigration inspected the businesses and checked their remaining employees before the suspensions were lifted after about a month. This incident raises questions about the Commission’s screening process that preceded the recommendations.

Port City officials said they knew of no scamming operations within Port City and had received no notification from a regulator that such activity was occurring. However, as stated earlier there are companies registered at the Port City but are operating from offices elsewhere in Colombo. Some of these companies bring in substantial numbers of foreign workers, and the Commission is not in a position to guarantee that these organizations are not involved in any unlawful activities.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has documented the expansion of Southeast Asian scam networks into South Asia and other regions. These groups exploit jurisdictions with limited investigative capacity and corruption. Their operations involve money laundering and, in many cases, people trafficked into forced criminal activity.  

Inspections also give workers a chance to speak freely without the supervision of their employers. Examples from other Asian countries have shown that a company's account of its workforce cannot be the only source of information about their workers. Following up on missing workers or unexplained changes of address can uncover abuse that a completed monthly form would conceal.

Sri Lankan officials had discussed these potential risks in April 2025, when the National Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force and the Bali Process Regional Support Office convened a dialogue in Colombo involving more than 35 agencies and other organizations. Participants considered both the trafficking of Sri Lankans abroad and the emergence of scam centers inside the country and warned that weak coordination would increase Sri Lanka's exposure.  

At the October parliamentary hearing, Chairman of the COPF, MP Harsha de Silva said in the first-quarter 2026 arrivals from Myanmar rose to 458 percent, from Vietnam 258 percent and from Cambodia 70 percent compared to the same period in 2025. However, the Commission officials could not confirm or deny whether they overlapped with Port City visa recommendations.  

The Commission believes that recruitment of foreign workers is a net benefit to the country’s economy. A Commission official told COPF that each business that comes in and employee created encourages demand for office space. That demand would encourage developers to build commercial premises and thus, the Commission therefore wanted as many businesses as possible to establish operations under its framework.

MPs also questioned the ownership of companies incorporated in offshore jurisdictions. Officials said they collected shareholder and beneficial-ownership information, including details of individual owners where an applicant had no parent company.  The committee asked the Commission to provide, within two weeks, a breakdown of foreign workers sponsored by the businesses under review, including their nationalities, periods of stay and job roles. It also wanted to compare actual recruitment with the numbers companies had proposed. The 14,300 figure was a visa total; the hearing did not establish how many recipients remained in the country.  

 The Commission argues that foreign-worker recruitment benefits the economy but the hearing showed that there is stark oversight gap. Neither the Commission nor Parliament could not establish how many of the 14,300 visa recipients were still in the country or what work they were doing. Until the Commission and Immigration can reconcile records and inspect sponsored businesses, neither investors nor the public can be confident that the Port City framework is being used as intended.