Incentive payment to address teacher shortage: Akila
“The proposal to grant an incentive payment for teachers who teach subjects such as ICT, Chemistry, and Physics for which there is a severe shortage of teachers is being considered,” Education Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam said.
He was responding to a question raised by UPFA MP Bandula Gunawardena in Parliament yesterday. The Minister said the Government was considering the proposal to retain those teachers in the profession.
“Many teachers recruited to teach ICT, Chemistry, Physics among others, did not remain in the service for long as they do not receive a good salary,” MP Gunawardena said.
The Minister agreed with the Gunawardena’s comment and said the attention has already been paid to the matter. “However, Increasing their salary or granting an incentive without doing the same for other teachers will lead to many issues. We hope to come up with a proper solution shortly,” he said.
The Minister said the South Korean Government has agreed to train more Sri Lankan teachers in South Korea bearing all their expenses.
“More teachers will be recruited for the technical subject stream and 33 digital smart classrooms are being constructed,” the Minister said.
UNP denounces delaying LG elections: Eran
“The UNP denounces delaying the Local Government polls; elections should be held at the right time,” State Minister of Finance Eran Wickramaratne said.
The State Minister was speaking during the committee stage debate on the financial heads of the Ministries of Disaster Management, Women and Child Affairs and Social Empowerment, Welfare and Kandyan Heritage in Parliament yesterday.
“When a new Constitution is drafted, specific dates for elections should be clearly defined,” he said.
Refuting a statement made by TNA- MP Shanthi Sriskandarasa that liquor licences are issued and it helps increase alcohol consumption, Wickramaratne said the government has no such intention.
“We increase all varieties of alcohol. We need to collect taxes to benefit the people. We are prepared to raise the prices of all alcohol including beer,” he said.
Minister Wickramaratne said the government was ready to increase female representation in the political sphere fulfilling an election promise made to create a new Sri Lanka for women. The government has stipulated a 25 percent female representation at the upcoming LG elections, he said.
He said female engagement in the tea and rubber sectors were fairly high but in the calculation of the GDP, female contribution is not included. A mother’s contribution to society, though highly significant, is not included in the GDP, he said.
“Female representation in the state sector is around 50 percent, but the highest rung of management has only one female for six males. The second level management has only one female for five males. Women are ahead of males in the education sphere, but they receive far fewer opportunities in decision making process. We need to change this gap,” he said. Wickramaratne said the budget has proposals to establish childcare facilities at workplaces to facilitate greater female participation in the workforce.
‘Samurdhi benefits for two million poor families next year’
Social Empowerment, Welfare and Kandyan Heritage Minister S.B. Dissanayake said 1.4 million of low income families would receive financial assistance and the government intended to increase the number to two million by next year.
He was speaking during the committee stage debate on the budget proposal under the financial heads of the Ministries of Women and Child Affairs, Social Empowerment, Welfare and Kandyan Heritage and Foreign Employment. The Minister said the Samurdhi fund has around 200 billion in capital. He said it would be used to save the poor people from unfair money lenders.
“Villages has money lenders who prey on hapless, vulnerable villagers and give them loans at high interest. We want to release the villagers from the money lenders’ grasp and provide concessionary loans through banks. We intend to empower rural families through the President’s Grama Shakthi Programme,”the Minister said.
Election system has many inaccuracies, difficulties: Hakeem
The election system has many inaccuracies and difficulties that block holding early elections, City Planning and Water Supply Minister Rauff Hakeem said in Parliament yesterday.
He said it would be more advisable to revert to the earlier system if there was no way to correct the errors and anomalies of the present.
He was speaking during the committee stage debate of the budget 2018 on the financial heads of the Ministries of Disaster Management, Women and Child Affairs and Social Empowerment, Welfare and Kandyan Heritage.
“There is absolutely enough room to revert back to the earlier system, at least temporarily for the impending elections,” he said.
Minister Hakeem said discussions were held with other party leaders and backbenchers, and they were all in favour of holding the elections under the earlier system.
He commended Justice and Foreign Employment Minister Thalatha Athukorale and Women and Child Affairs Minister Chandrani Bandara for having moved beyond mere symbolism to improve conditions for women and for introducing several ground-breaking new changes.
“The most notable change is the 25 percent female representation. It was now enacted into law. We must congratulate the Ministers,” he said.
He said that only 50 percent of women are working or earning globally. “Sri Lanka’s is at mere 35 percent. To increase female labour force, understanding the reasons for this and take steps to improve it by addressing supply and demand is vital,” he said.
Court case preventing LG polls is political knot: Anura Kumara
“The case before court preventing Local Government elections is a political knot,” Chief Opposition Whip and JVP Parliamentarian Anura Kumara Dissanayake said in Parliament yesterday.
He was speaking during the committee stage debate on the budget proposal under the financial heads of the Ministries of Women and Child Affairs Ministry, Social Empowerment, Welfare and Kandyan Heritage and Foreign Employment.
MP Anura Dissanayake said the government formulated a election system to increase women’s representation. “We don’t know if this would be 25 percent,” MP Dissanayake said. “The Parliament, however, has done a commendable job,” he said.
The JVP MP said the election has to be held to increase the women’s representation.
“The Minister issued the gazette on November 1. The Election Commission said it would declare the elections between November 27 and December 4. While all institutions, parties and the people were getting ready for the election, the court case was filed. It was a political knot and those who instructed the former President have instructed the incumbent President as well. The same “balagiri” instructed the former President to interfere in the judiciary,” he said.
Minister Faiszer Musthapha asked if a member could disrepute the judiciary and Speaker Karu Jayasuriya said he would look into the matter.
MP Dissanayake said he was responsible for all the words he said. He said the gazette was issued on a report submitted nine months ago and the Minister was not able to identify its flaws so far.
“After nine months, a member of the RDA in Bandarawela, and a person in Deniyaya, a teacher in Udawalawa, a contractor in Panduwasnuwara have at once find out flaws in the gazette,” MP Dissanayake said.
“How did it happen? These are political cases. They don’t know at least the impact of the gazette on them. Only one persons knows the flaws,” he said.
Minister Faiszer Musthapha said the gazette has no flaws and the matter was being heard before a court.
“He is trying to say I knew about the flaws. But the gazette has no flaws,” Musthapha said.
MP Anura Dissanayake said that when the election was declared only, the court case was filed for the gazette that was issued nine months ago. “This is an incident entangling the court to meet someone’s dishonest political end as we have seen in the history,” Dissanayake said.
He said the gazette issued on August 23, 2015 has 40 flaws, and they were not related to the gazette before the court.
“These flaws had to be found before November 9. But those were found after November 1,” Dissanayake said.
“I have sought legal advice from the Attorney General’s Department on this matter,” Minister Faiszer Musthapha said.
MP Dissanayake said this political trick has no parents. “None has backbone to accept the error, We are ready to resolve this political matter before Parliament, Court or on the road,” he said.
Living off on housemaids’ income shameful: Manusha
“Sri Lankans should be ashamed of themselves for living off on the earnings made by women working abroad as housemaids,” Foreign Employment Deputy Minister Manusha Nanayakkara said in Parliament yesterday.
He was speaking during the committee stage debate on the budget proposal under the financial heads of the Ministries of Women and Child Affairs, Social Empowerment, Welfare and Kandyan Heritage and Foreign Employment.
“The country has to create jobs with higher salaries,” he said.
“When we celebrate our 70 years of independence, our main source of income is sending women for slavery in West Asian countries,” the Deputy Minister said.
“We should be ashamed of this situation as a nation disregarding party differences,” the Deputy Minister said.
He said the country already lacked trained labour.
“We do not have sufficient trained labour,” Deputy Minister said.
“We do not have to send trained labour abroad to serve them. We must develop a system to tap that potential to benefit our country. We must decide whether we should send our workers abroad while construction companies in the country are seeking government permission to bring in Indian workers to cover the dearth of workers in the industry. We should put an end to sending untrained workers abroad,” the Deputy Minister said.
JO MPs listed to speak in debate absent
Deputy Minister Ranjan Ramanayake highlighted that the JO benches were empty when important issues related to women, children, migrant workers and Samurdhi beneficiaries were discussed in the House. “The absence depicts the JO’s real attitude towards the people’s problems,” he said.
He was speaking during the Finance Heads of the Ministries of Women and Child Affairs Ministry, Social Empowerment, Welfare and Kandyan Heritage and Foreign Employment were taken up yesterday at the Committee Stage debate of Budget 2018.
Seven Joint Opposition (JO) MPs listed to speak in the debate yesterday were absent in Parliament to take the floor.
It created a gap in the debate and led to JVP MP Bimal Rathnayake chairing the House to remind the Chief Whips of the Government and the Opposition to make sure the listed MPs take part in the debate.
Kanaka Herath, Piyal Nishantha, Premalal Jayasekara, Shehan Semasinghe, Arundika Fernando, Jayantha Samaraweera, and Niroshan Premaratne were read out by the presiding member but none of them were present.
“A main complaint the JO repeatedly brings out is that their group is not allocated sufficient time to speak in Parliament, but when the time was allocated, they failed to make use of it,” he said.
Rules in support of differently abled do not function: Gammanpila
“Strong rules pertaining to differently abled persons may suggest that our country is a haven for them. But the bitter reality is the rules are not implemented, Joint Opposition MP Udaya Gammanpila said.
Gammanpila was speaking during the committee stage debate on the budget proposal under the financial heads of the Ministries of Women and Child Affairs, Social Empowerment, Welfare and Kandyan Heritage and Foreign Employment.
“Of the differently abled in the age group of 15-19 years, 30,308 receive no education. As many as 31,545 of them disabled when they were in the age group of 5-9 years; 6,404 or 20 percent of them have had no education. Just as the vicious cycle of poverty, there is vicious cycle for the disabled,” he said.
“Since they are disabled, they don’t get education. Therefore they cannot find jobs. Joblessness hinders their independence and makes them incapable of supporting themselves. They have no other option but to suffer within this vicious cycle,” he said.
“A state administrative circular specifies that 3 percent of job recruitments should be allocated for differently abled persons,” Gammanpila said.
“Of the total number of differently abled persons in the country, 71 percent or over 1.1 million are unemployed. If they are provided with modern technical devices and training facilities, they will find employments without being a burden on their families,” Gammanpila said.
Rohitha brings consumer goods to Parliament
Joint Opposition (JO) Parliamentarian Rohitha Abeygunawardena brought a chili, a sprat, and an onion into Parliament yesterday to talk of high prices of consumer goods. Exhibiting one by one, he said the prices of consumer goods were very high and the people could not afford them.
He was speaking at the committee stage debate on the budget proposals under the financial heads of the Ministries of Women and Child Affairs, Social Empowerment, Welfare and Kandyan Heritage and Foreign Employment Ministry.
“A single green chili is at Rs. 8.33 today, 100 g of sprats is at Rs. 150 that means a single sprat is Rs. 2.14. One kg of onions is at Rs. 500 which means an onion bulb is Rs. 2.50,” MP Abeygunawardena said.
“The people ate well during our period. Those days the people talked of kilos of sprats but now they talk of single sprat. If you go to a fair, the people there will tell you the ground reality. But the government members say the people are very happy.”
“Over 80 percent of the people are living with difficulties. While the people live under hardships, the government attempts to postpone the LG polls,” the MP said.
“The government speaks of the women abroad for employments. If they do not send here their salaries for three months, economy of the country will collapse,” the MP said.
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