The Hon. Chaminda Wijesiri

¶ 01 Hon. Deputy Chairperson of Committees, many valuable ideas were presented on my motion. The Hon. Minister gave a very reasonable response. I first thank all Members who contributed.

¶ 02 Hon. Deputy Minister, many of our Members offered proposals to further strengthen your programme. Hon. Rohan Bandara endorsed my motion and raised an important issue on conflicts between wildlife zones and dairy farmers, particularly in your district. Government intervention to resolve these would address many practical problems in the livestock sector.

¶ 03 I especially thank Hon. Rohan Bandara for highlighting issues in wildlife areas across the country. Hon. Wasantha Balagalla spoke of a livestock farm in Mahiyanganaya and suggested giving it to foreign investment or for sale. While such options can be interpreted variously, the point was to make it profitable. However, that misses the core of my motion. Hon. Deputy Minister, sometimes in politics people are used and discarded; but here, the intent is to make otherwise idle systems productive, not to discard people. I regret that my motion was misunderstood.

¶ 04 Hon. Dayasiri Jayasekara raised an important point: our daily egg demand is 9.5 million, and there is surplus production of about 135,000, yet prices rise due to mafias. So, in addition to reducing production costs, please create mechanisms to absorb the surplus into domestic consumption and export the remainder within your new programme.

¶ 05 Hon. Kirthanan Selvarajah spoke on milk powder imports devastating dairy farmers and asked whether imports will be curtailed and whether locally produced liquid milk can be converted to powder. We hope your new programme will include liquid-to-powder conversion.

¶ 06 Hon. Sellathambi Thennilankandan highlighted issues regarding veterinarians in the livestock sector, including recruitment. Your Government should, via the Department of Management Services, expedite recruitment of F-grade officers to fill gaps.