Harsha accuses Hambantota-savvy MR of treating rest as second class citizens

Wednesday, 10 September 2014 00:34 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Dharisha Bastians The main opposition United National Party has accused the Government of treating Hambantota as if it were home to a superior class of people with its mega development drive in the district, while other regions are being badly neglected. “Are the rest of us children of a lesser god?” UNP National List Legislator and firebrand economic spokesman Dr. Harsha De Silva told a news conference at Sirikotha yesterday.

The Government was poised to spend Rs. 337 billion on a host of flyovers, B grade roads and the extension of the Southern Expressway from Mattala to Hambantota, in deals to be inked with Beijing during the Chinese President’s visit to Colombo next week, De Silva charged. “Why this special treatment for Hambantota? What about the rest of the country? Why on earth does Hambantota need so many flyovers and expressways? As far as we know, there is no significant traffic congestion in the district,” he asserted. De Silva said that the Government had got its development priorities completely mixed up. The MP who has been on the campaign trail in Uva, said farmers in the province were in dire straits, with crops failing in the current Maha season due to the ongoing drought conditions. The lack of rain during the previous paddy cultivation season of Yala had destroyed everything the farmers in the area had grown, he charged. “Just off the carpet roads in Badulla, villagers in agricultural communities are facing terrible hardships. Many of them are lucky to be able to get two meals a day,” the Opposition Lawmaker told reporters during the press briefing. Compared with the 337 billion allocated in borrowed monies to upgrade facilities mostly in the Hambantota District, De Silva said the Government had allocated a meagre Rs. 4.72 billion for capital expenditure in the agricultural sector, while irrigation – the lifeblood of the farmer – had been allocated only Rs. 31 billion. The fate of farmers across the country was the strongest indication that the Government’s agricultural policies were an abject failure, Dr. De Silva said. “They claim they hail from agricultural families. Yet what have they done to uplift the livelihoods of farmers? The Government has no structured agricultural policy, and critically, no water management policy,” the UNP MP explained.