Row over housing project: Sajith again threatens to resign
At last Tuesday’s weekly cabinet meeting, Housing and Construction Minister Sajith Premadasa threatened to resign from both his portfolio and the post of Deputy Leader of the United National Party (UNP).
That is if he is not allowed to go ahead with a housing project to be located in a palm oil cultivation property in the Hambantota District. Protests over this move were raised by his colleague Agriculture Minister Mahinda Amaraweera who complained that neither he nor his Ministry had been consulted. Mr. Amaraweera argued that such ventures could not be undertaken on Mr Premadasa’s own will.
The remarks were to spark a verbal duel between the two ministers. Mr Amaraweera charged that such ventures should not be launched for political reasons without consulting the relevant stakeholders.
Mr Premadasa lost his temper and declared that if he was not allowed to go ahead with the project, he would resign from his ministerial portfolio and even from the position of Deputy Leader of the UNP. This was not the issue. The issue was how he was acting on his own, pointed out Mr Amaraweera. His party leader and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe made many attempts to intervene but was not successful.
“Let us not talk here about it,” declared President Maithripala Sirisena and the matter, at least for last week, ended there. The President is expected to meet the two ministers to resolve the dispute.
This is not the first time Minister Premadasa has threatened to resign. He made a similar threat at a weekly cabinet meeting on January 17 last year. This is how the matter was reported in these columns on January 22, 2017:
“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 was away in Davos for the World Economic Summit). 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.”