President still firm on Rs.25,000 traffic fine:Rajitha

President Maithripala Sirisena has not backed down from imposing the Rs.25,000 fine on serious traffic offenses, Co-Cabinet Spokesperson and Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne yesterday.

He insisted that only the two offences of imposing the fine on speeding and overtaking from the left had been reconsidered but the other five offences would still have the Rs.25,000 fine imposed.

“The government withdrew on speeding and overtaking on the left as we don’t have a clear policy yet as to how to or whether we should increase the speed limit or not. Also, the laws don’t mention overtaking from the left. Therefore, these have to be fixed. This has nothing to do with the Private Bus Owners Association,”he added.

Minister Senaratne addressing the weekly Cabinet briefing at the Parliamentary Complex said that the announcement made by the Private Bus Owners’ Association that their strike was successful and that the government had backed down was false. “They only said that they were successful in getting the meeting with the President. The President has not agreed to remove the fines,”he said.

The minister also mentioned that since the announcement of the fines, the number of deaths due to road accidents had reduced from eight to two.

“This is just by mentioning it. We haven’t even passed it into law as yet,” he said.

The private bus strike on December 2 had resulted in 128 Sri Lanka Transport Board buses been attacked with several passengers injured.

“Strict action should be taken against those who damaged government property. At least 128 have to be arrested so far, but we don’t see that happening. If the area police are saying they can’t find who did it, what is the use of the police?” asked Senaratne. Globally around 12 million people die due to road accidents a year, with the majority of 9 million being male victims, the Health Minister said.