Sri Lanka’s Honorary Consul in Guinea, Dr. Anuruddha Shanaka, has pushed back against the Foreign Ministry’s response to his proposal for promoting tourism and wider economic cooperation with the West African country, calling the Ministry’s reasoning “fundamentally misplaced”.
The Ministry had cited the absence of direct air connectivity and low tourist arrivals from Guinea. In a letter addressed to the Foreign Ministry’s Director General for African Affairs, a copy of which Daily Mirror said it holds, Shanaka argued that connectivity is a problem to be solved rather than grounds for abandoning an emerging market.
Disputing the numbers
Shanaka challenged the Ministry’s statistics, citing roughly 11 high-value Guinean visitors to Sri Lanka during 2025–26 and a recent high-net-worth delegation he accompanied that he said spent between US$40,000 and US$50,000 during a week in Colombo while staying at a top hotel.
The absence of historical arrivals does not demonstrate an absence of opportunity, he argued — it shows that Sri Lanka has yet to develop the market.
He pointed to Guinea’s expanding mining and infrastructure economy, including the multi-billion-dollar Simandou iron ore project, and said Sri Lanka should move to capture opportunities before competitors do.
A dispute over protocol
The letter also took issue with diplomatic procedure. Shanaka said correspondence concerning his functions as Honorary Consul should be channelled through the Sri Lankan High Commission in Nairobi, which he described as his reporting authority and which is concurrently accredited to Guinea.
He said the Africa Division’s Director General had not followed that channel. “It is regrettable that the established diplomatic reporting procedures do not appear to have been fully followed,” he wrote, adding that adherence to proper channels mattered not merely as procedure but to uphold institutional discipline, accountability and respect for the diplomatic chain of command.
Daily Mirror did not report a response from the Foreign Ministry. Sri Lanka has expanded its honorary consular network in recent months, including new posts in Cambodia and Davao City in the Philippines.
