The Hon. Aravinda Senarath

¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, a short while ago Hon. Bhesha Withanage spoke and made an erroneous statement regarding a development project in the Hambantota District. Therefore, he too erred. Hon. Dilip Wedaarachchi, who said he conveyed the message to him, has also made a mistake, because that statement is false. We cannot discuss this based on media charts. Our District Coordinating Committee first met on 23rd December. At the Coordinating Committee meeting held on 23rd December, we temporarily halted those projects to examine the matter. There is a very sensitive zone within it, including Mahaweli lands, Wildlife lands and LRC lands. It is an area that has been subject to a serious human-elephant conflict. Therefore, we temporarily suspended the projects to look into it and conducted a formal investigation. After discussing the matter with the relevant experts and with the farming community, at the last District Coordinating Committee meeting we decided to release the lands and facilitate the investors to re-commence those solar projects.

¶ 02 What those gentlemen said, and the information they provided, did not come from the Coordinating Committee. Those are things mentioned in some newspaper or media. If we proceed according to such media charts, Parliament will be misled. Therefore, we reject his statement. With a national objective of supplying electricity, we have decided in a manner that the required land in the Hambantota District will not harm the local people nor damage the ecosystem. Therefore, that statement of his is entirely false and fabricated.