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Wednesday, 31 May 2017 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
President Maithripala Sirisena said yesterday that the Government had decided to stop the importation of vehicles for all Government institutions this year, including ministries.
The President instructed the officials to rapidly implement the program to reconstruct houses destroyed by floods and landslides that battered the country.
He made these remarks while participating in a special discussion with the National Council for Disaster Management held at the Presidential Secretariat.
The Government will take steps to reconstruct 640 completely destroyed houses with the assistance of members of the security forces and Civil Defence Force and National Housing Development Authority. It will also renovate another 5,329 partially destroyed houses with the assistance of the Ministry of Vocational Training.
The President also instructed officials to submit a comprehensive report regarding the details of all the roads, schools, electricity supply systems and health service institutions which have been destroyed by the floods and landslides and pledged to provide swift solutions in this regard.
Further, President Sirisena instructed officials to identify lands located beyond landslide-prone areas to construct new houses and further emphasised not to resettle people in conservation areas making them illegal settlers.
The President also stated that all the decisions made in this regard should not be taken to further narrow political agendas but should be long-lasting policy decisions made for the betterment of the country.
The country and its citizens had to face these types of catastrophes due to certain decisions made for political gain instead of being the right policy decisions.
The Government has decided to grant compensation to all those who have died and the President pointed out that until the present Government came to power only Rs. 15,000 was given as compensation for each person who had died while the present Government had increased that amount to Rs. 100,000.
The President told the officials to look into the possibility of providing special benefits to the family members of those who had died.
The President drew the attention of the officials to the need to implement awareness building programs on disaster risk reduction strategies for people living in vulnerable areas, as these people had faced a similar kind of situation in 2003 as well.
During the meeting, the Minister of Education expressed his views and updated the meeting regarding the initiative by the Ministry to provide books, school uniforms, shoes and other essential materials for all affected schoolchildren.
He further said that steps had been taken to issue school certificates to those who had lost theirs from the Department of Examinations free of charge.
Power and Renewable Energy Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya said the ministry would provide electricity meters free of charge to those affected and a six-month extension would be given to pay outstanding electricity bills for all disaster victims.
Ministers and parliamentarians, ministry secretaries, public servants and heads of security services participated in this meeting.
