The Hon. Arun Hemachandra - Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Employment

¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, before addressing our Ministry’s head, let me express regret over avoidable incidents in my district in recent days, which were escalated by political actors. For example, regarding the Dharma Shala land issue, action taken near a restaurant run by a former UNP MP’s family escalated matters. We are ready to discuss what should be done going forward as a Government.

¶ 02 On Foreign Affairs and Foreign Employment: we have lifted our external engagement. We now work cordially with all countries. Projects and relations we had lost are being revived; partners are approaching us again. We are advancing a culture of governance free of corruption and irregularity.

¶ 03 On foreign employment: this year we have achieved the highest-ever worker remittances—a collective national achievement. Sri Lanka is now recognized as a GCM Champion for safe migration. The Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) plays a key role from pre-departure to reintegration. We are raising the share of trained workers; it has surpassed 70%, and we aim for 80–85% in the next two years.

¶ 04 There were problematic agreements entered into previously, e.g., on Israel, without proper due diligence—binding us to lotteries and training pipelines without guarantees that all selected would receive jobs. We are rectifying these weaknesses promptly.

¶ 05 We faced around 10,000 backlog complaints on foreign employment fraud. We set up a special police unit to expedite investigations, including at BIA, to curb irregular departures. We also uncovered major fraud in issuance of air tickets via the SLBFE channel; I table the audit report, which will inform legal action and is relevant to ongoing cases before the Bribery Commission. Air ticket prices fluctuate and should be monitored via systems like Amadeus, but such systems were absent; for Israel, a flat rate of Rs. 295,000 was charged. We have now obtained an IATA licence for the Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Agency to issue tickets directly and provide benefits to workers. We are also studying packaged offerings for all outbound workers.

¶ 06 On pensions, we are formulating a proper scheme. We discussed voting rights for migrant workers with the Election Commission and have a Cabinet decision; work is underway.

¶ 07 We achieved about Rs. 200 million in Budget savings this year. We are also upgrading consular sections in our missions—procurements are underway—to address shortages of printers, copiers and modern computers. We are providing 36 new vehicles to foreign missions and eight vehicles to units handling foreign employment.

¶ 08 We are appointing labour attachés, removing purely political postings. We will shortly send officers to countries like Romania and Japan to serve our workers.

¶ 09 Thank you.