Provincial Councils and Local Government Authorities State Minister Roshan Ranasinghe said that the worst tragedy to have affected farmers took place during the tenure of former President Maithripala Sirisena.
He was responding to a recent statement by the former President on the problems faced by farmers.
State Minister Ranasinghe was addressing the media following a function where the new Board of Directors of the Institute of Sri Lanka on Local Government assumed their duties on Monday.
"We are asking the Leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) not to go public with things he should have spoken within the Government. If farmers suffer any damage, we, as a Government, hope to compensate them. When Sirisena was the President, paddy was stored at the Mattala Airport saying that there was no space in warehouses. He cut fertilizer subsidies. He deactivated the Paddy Marketing Board. It was during his tenure that the people were deprived of irrigation water required for paddy fields,” he said.
“President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has made a good decision to develop organic cultivation. It was a good choice to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers as much as possible,” he said.
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