The Hon. (Dr.) Susil Ranasinghe

¶ 01 Mr. Speaker, the LRC has a practice of granting land for housing to its staff. The Act does not specifically mandate land to staff, but there is a welfare provision under which land for housing has been granted since 1982 to employees with 5 years’ service and no disciplinary issues, in non-commercial parcels. However, some staff, through political or positional influence, have obtained commercially valuable urban plots. We cannot now cancel those grants arbitrarily; at most, one could legally challenge, but we would not go that far.

¶ 02 There is a provision that, if required for another public purpose, through the District Coordinating Committee and in consultation with relevant agencies, such land could be taken over. If this specific land is required for a public purpose, we can initiate steps to take it over accordingly. Otherwise, blanket cancellation could cause injustices; we acknowledge some have used the scheme to obtain prime land.