President Gotabaya Rajapaksa yesterday stressed his Government’s expectation to create a prosperous nation. Only the present generation can realize this hope on behalf of future generations, he said.
Delivering the policy statement of his Government at the inaugural session of the 9th Parliament yesterday, he said, “We have arrived at an important landmark in history. The people have given the current government a massive mandate. We have been given the responsibility to take the country towards prosperity while safeguarding the people and protecting the sovereignty of the country without succumbing to any force. The present generation must fulfill that responsibility for the sake of the future generations”.
He called upon all Sri Lankans to join these efforts to fulfill this responsibility that history has bestowed upon us. “This is the Motherland of all of us. Hence, the time has come for all of us to join hands for the sake of the country irrespective of race, religion or party differences. I extend my hand of friendship to everybody to join me to build a prosperous nation as promised to our people.”
“I love my country. I am proud of my country. I have a vision for my country. Our ardent desire is to build a prosperous nation with a productive citizen, content family and a righteous society. What we have done so far as well as the plans we propose to implement in future will be aimed at achieving this objective,” he said.
Establishing firmly that the prime policy of our Government is national security, we have restructured the security apparatus and intelligence services, eliminating the fears of the people thereby restoring the security of the country, he recalled. “We have re-created an environment where any citizen can live freely without any fear for the safety of themselves and their families. As I have pledged, the launch of the methodical mechanism to protect the people against social evils such as the activities of the underworld and the drug menace that have been a hindrance to the day-to-day lives of the people has also increased the confidence of the public.”
Accordingly, a virtuous and a law-abiding society is emerging as we promised, he pointed out.
President Rajapaksa outlined the policies of the government briefly stressing the plans for every important sector including economy, agriculture, industries, education, technology, health and tourism.
The President, emphasizing the importance of education, said that the government expenditure on education for all the students to pursue their future endeavours and to develop their skills is an investment for the future. In achieving our future objectives, special attention needs to be paid to technical education. “We will pay special attention in education reforms in respect of Grade 6 to Grade 13. We will increase the capacity of Universities enabling all students who pass the Advanced Level Examination to pursue university education. Further, we will take measures to improve the Open University network and Distance Learning methods. The curriculum will be revised to ensure that these degree subjects would directly contribute to the growth of the economy”.
The top priority of the government is to enhance growth of agriculture sector. A large percentage of citizens of this country, earn their livelihood through self-employment. During the last two months the President visited many areas in the country and listened to the grievances of the people. The request made by the farmers was for adequate water and fertilizer during cultivation seasons. “We should address these issues. Therefore we will implement broad strategies to rehabilitate the tanks and to develop the irrigation system across the country,” the President stressed.
Another major social issue faced by the youth is unemployment. Both short term and long-term solutions have been explored to address this issue. The President referred to the programme to provide employment for 100,000 persons who belong to the most underprivileged families in the country. Simultaneously, another programme put in motion to provide job opportunities to 60,000 graduates and arrange training for them to make their services efficient.
When offering job opportunities we will prioritize the households with the lowest per capita income. In this process, we will ensure equal distribution of job opportunities for all the areas, he said. “Every appointee to government jobs should contribute an efficient service to the country. Therefore, no ministry or department is allowed to arbitrarily enroll individuals to their staff.”
Another issue highlighted by the people was that they did not possess proper deeds for their lands. “We will provide them legitimate deeds through a swift process. I assure you that without a proper alternative we will not evict people from their ancestral homes or farmlands.”
The intrusion of elephants in to villages has become a major issue. A group of experts have already been appointed to come up with a feasible resolution for this issue. The President pointed out that a separate state ministry solely responsible for this issue was established as the Government is well aware that this issue needs a long-term solution.
A substantial number of people across the country suffer from shortage of drinking water. We will take necessary steps to address these humane issues, the President said and added that as a national policy, steps would be taken to provide drinking water to every part of the country.
Parents request schools with adequate facilities for their children to educate in. The insufficiencies of national schools were evident in every area. Most schools do not have adequate facilities. The shortage of teachers, lab access, libraries and sports was frequently mentioned. Although we request students to follow science and technical subjects in order to successfully contribute to the economy, their schools do not even have basic facilities to teach those streams.
The ministries which had been assigned with new duties will prioritize addressing these issues.
Another important issue was that the inadequacy of facilities in the health sector. Both resources and facilities in rural hospitals are in an unsatisfactory state. There is a considerable shortage of doctors, nurses and other staff members in these hospitals. Patients in some areas have to travel long distances for treatments. “We will eliminate these unfortunate discrepancies when we ensure free healthcare facilities for everyone,” the President said and added that both Ayurvedic and indigenous medicinal systems will be preserved and promoted.
“Instead of spending large amounts of foreign exchange to import medicine, we have already commenced operations to manufacture medicines locally. We will also eradicate corruption which occurs in the importation of medicine. This is why we formed a separate state ministry to manufacture, supply and regulate medicine,” he said.
President Rajapaksa explained the reasons for newly-structured State Ministries. He requested all the Ministers and State Ministers to create job opportunities in their respective areas with the assistance of the private sector. Both main ministries and state ministries are expected to work in cooperation with the respective private companies in the industry to generate job opportunities. In addition, we will take necessary steps to promote self-employment and entrepreneurship in each industry as well. Our duty and responsibility is not to distribute job opportunities but to generate them, he said.
“In order to overcome both local and global challenges and revive the economy, we will have to adopt new ways of thinking. Out of the box thinking is required in order to meet the economic challenges. This time, the ministries have been formed with this thought in mind”.
The need of a people-centric economy to ensure real economic revival has been identified. When forming ministries, special attention was given in assigning subjects and tasks in order to cover fields such as agriculture, plantations, fisheries, ancestral industries and promotion of self-employment opportunities which are of utmost importance to the people in the country. Our basic aims are to strengthen the local economy and increase export income. Currently the income from tea, coconut and rubber industries is not at a satisfactory level.
“We will develop tea plantations and at the same time, the Government will aid the small and medium scale tea estate owners as well.
Due to the shutting down of tea factories, they have encountered a number of difficulties. We will resume their operations and eliminate existing irregularities simultaneously encouraging the export of high-quality tea,” the President said and emphasized, “We will reclaim the global title we held for Ceylon Tea.”
The government will encourage planting of new coconut saplings. In order to enact a reasonable price for rubber, local rubber industrialists will be encouraged to utilize local rubber. Plantation of palm oil trees will be stopped completely. “We promote the production of export crops such as pepper and cinnamon. We will provide opportunities to generate substantial foreign exchange by providing a stable price to the farmers through value addition to agricultural products and exporting them.”
President Rajapaksa said that in delegating responsibilities to ministries, special attention was paid to the development of urban and rural infrastructure facilities and to find solutions to the housing problem faced by the people. “We have identified several sectors that can directly contribute to the development of the country and accordingly to appoint State Ministers responsible for these areas and to assign them the relevant subjects and activities.”
As human resource development has been identified as a priority, the subject of education was brought under one Ministry and four State Ministers were appointed in charge of different responsibilities. Separate State Ministries for Pre-School, Education Reforms, Skills Development as well as Dhamma School and Bhikku Education have been set up because of their importance.
“We also initiated measures to build a production economy,” the President said. “Paddy farmers were given a higher guaranteed price for their products. We took steps to protect local farmers by halting importation of exportable produce for re-export as well as banning importation of crops that could have been grown locally. Farmers were provided with required fertilizer free of charge. People were encouraged to re-cultivate abandoned lands throughout the country. Through all these, we provided a new lease of life to the agricultural sector in this country.”
After having elected, the government has provided tax concessions targeting local entrepreneurs. Interest rates were brought down to encourage businesses. Highly competitive imports were restricted in order to protect local entrepreneurs and industrialists.
The basis of the success of a democratic state is its constitution. Our Constitution, which has been amended 19 times, from its inception in 1978, has many ambiguities and uncertainties, presently resulting in confusion, the President pointed out. “As the people have given us the mandate we wanted for a constitutional amendment, our first task will be to remove the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. After that, all of us will get together to formulate a new Constitution suitable for the country. In this, the priority will be given to the concept of one country, one law for all the people.”
An unstable Parliament that cannot take firm decisions and succumbs to extremist influences very often is not suitable for a country. While introducing a new Constitution, it is essential to make changes to the current electoral system, he said and assured that while retaining the salutary aspects of the Proportional Representation system, these changes will be made to ensure stability of Parliament and people’s direct representation.
Referring to the unprecedented mandate given by the people, President Rajapaksa said, “It is clear that people enthusiastically supported us in this election due to the trust we have built in them in this manner.”
“We will continue to serve the people in a manner that affirms this trust,” he promised the people.
