Agitated Sajith demands full budgetary allocation

Housing and Construction Minister Sajith Premadasa, deputy leader of the United National Party (UNP), raised many an eyebrow at last Tuesday’s weekly ministerial meeting. He threatened to resign if a major grievance he faced was not rectified.

His grievance – Parliament had allocated six billion rupees to his Ministry of Housing and Construction. However, the ministry had only received three billion rupees whilst two billion had been given to the Ministry of Rehabilitation, Resettlement and Prison Reforms (D.M. Swaminathan) and the remaining one billion to the Ministry of National Dialogue (Mano Ganeshan).

According to a minister present at the meeting, Mr. Premadasa urged President Maithripala Sirisena, who chaired the meeting, to intervene. He wanted him to issue a directive that the monetary allocations be suspended until the matter was resolved. Mr. Sirisena did not approve of such a move.

President Sirisena, the minister said, made clear that they should await the return of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to discuss the matter. He noted that it was only a few days away. Moreover, Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake was also away. Both were attending the World Economic Forum in Davos in the Swiss Alps.

Another minister added that Mr. Premadasa was “quite agitated.” He complained that the taking away of the funds already approved by Parliament hampered development work of his ministry.

A UNP minister asked why Mr. Premadasa raised issue when Premier Wickremesinghe was away. However, a source close to the Housing Minister said that the minister had previously made representations to Mr. Wickremesinghe as well as President Sirisena. It seems, up to now, to no avail.