Prime Minister made these comments while participating in a special meeting held at the Ministry of Home Affairs yesterday to review the progress of decentralized budget programme implemented throughout the island, special projects, Urumaya programme, and Kandukara Dashakaya programme.
The total number of projects in the decentralized budget programme is 33,362 and the allocated amount is 11,250 million Rupees. The total amount of money that has already been released for districts is 11,022 million Rupees and it is 97.98% as a percentage. The remaining allocations to be released is 227 million Rupees.
Prime Minister commenting at the event stated that –
“The District Secretaries bear the main responsibility of implementing this project. We gather here today to review the outcomes of the discussions that have been done by you, us and specially the committee appointed by the President for three months. Completely deviating from the traditional way of allocating decentralized funds that has to be followed, the President has allowed us to go through, during the last 45 days. Accordingly, the allocations, required for implementation of this programme, by including District Secretaries, Chairmen of District Development Committees, Chairmen of Divisional Development Committees, have been provided.
You all are responsible to find whether the information is correct and complete. There is a delay in implementation of the primary of the decentralized programme. That is normal. If the proposals, recommendations and approval can be done earlier, as the institutions that implement them, they should be implemented without delay in the same way. We can purchase goods without delay at this moment. There are many things like the engineering certificate of the constructions. We can see whether these are implemented or not, only after all these programmes are finished. District Secretaries should take steps to provide all the reports clearly regarding these programmes.
The development of resumed projects of developing highways has been resumed. It has to be stated that the support for these programmes are inadequate. All the grass root level information is with the District Secretaries. It was said that work cannot be done due to the rain during the whole last month. Now it is said there is a drizzling rain. All District Secretary should report the actual situation.”
State Minister Ashoka Priyantha, Secretary to the Prime Minister Anura Dissanayake, Secretary to the Ministry of Public Administration Pradeep Yasaratne, Secretary to the Ministry of Urban Development S. Sathyanandan, Prime Minister’s Coordinating Officer K.G. Wijesiri participated in this event and District Secretaries joined the meeting through Zoom, and Officers of the Treasury, members of Presidential Special Committees of Urumaya and Kandukara Dashakaya programmes also participated in this event.
