Hon. Kins Nelson

¶ 01 Madam Deputy Chairperson, although today’s debate concerns several Ministries’ expenditure heads, I will speak about the disaster affecting my Polonnaruwa District and the whole country. Many lives have been lost; property destroyed; people missing. An SLAF pilot lost his life; several Navy personnel too. I express our condolences.

¶ 02 As of now, 356 missing; 474 dead; and 1,586,329 affected. On 12 November, the Director-General of Meteorology explained on national TV the expected heavy rains and strong winds from India. Was the Government duly alerted? Natural disasters cannot be prevented, but we must prepare.

¶ 03 In Polonnaruwa, 16,333 persons are affected; farmers and dairy farmers are in distress; we cannot yet calculate the extent of paddy damage. On the previous sitting day, the Government refused our request to allocate time in Parliament to discuss these issues and adjourned. That was a blow to parliamentary democracy. We must discuss these matters here.

¶ 04 I speak now because Rs. 50 million per Divisional Secretariat was announced. Polonnaruwa has 7 DS divisions—so Rs. 350 million should come. I met the District Secretary yesterday and asked why funds have not reached people. In reality, only about Rs. 8 million has come so far—roughly Rs. 800,000 per DS—while over 16,000 are displaced. The initial household support of Rs. 10,000 was raised to Rs. 25,000, which is good, but disbursement is lagging. We need the full Rs. 350 million released immediately and a clear plan to reach every affected family.