Developmnet of North in two phases-Basil

(May 31, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Chairman of the Uthuru Wasanthaya Presidential Task Force, Basil Rajapaksa says that the programme will go ahead in two phases.

“This will see the development of the north to speed up while the resettlement process for the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) continues.

Parliamentarian Basil Rajapaksa made these observations addressing a gathering of Tamil intellectuals yesterday.

The programme will gather ideas from various quarters in order to make the development programme in the north successful.

Addressing the gathering, Lalith Weerathunga, Presidential Secretary said that the government hoped to get the ideas of all.

“If you look at the past events during the few days gone by and the President’s address to parliament, there is one particular sentence that I want to highlight. From now on or from the time that he made that statement, there is nothing in this country called a minority. That is the main thing that we want to harp on,” he said.

“This is not a southern initiative. This has to be from all over the country. Now we are ready to take off, we have to ensure that development that was not done in the five districts of the Northern Province is undertaken immediately and that there is a programme that is transparent and acceptable that everybody can be party to,” Mr. Weerathunga stressed.

Meanwhile, Mr. Rajapaksa pointed out that the government wanted to localize the development projects to suit the needs of the people in the area.

“We also must ensure local ownership because when development is taking place, the people want their ownership so it should not be something we put or enforced from outside.

“When we tried to build the Kinniya-Arugam Bay Bridge, people in that area said that it was not being built for them but for tourists. They felt that they did not have ownership for the projects. So we must ensure local ownership of all the things we are doing,” said Parliamentarian Basil Rajapaksa.

He stressed the participation of the private sector in all those efforts, observing that there was zero private sector at present in those area. The private sector, the civil society and government organizations had to be stakeholders in the rebuilding process, Mr. Rajapaksa said.

-Sri Lanka Guardian