The Hon. M.A.M. Thahir
The Hon. M.A.M. Thahir addressed the resolution under the Public Security Ordinance to extend the emergency for providing relief and compensation to those affected by the Ditha cyclone. He said public debate had been dominated by competing claims between the government and opposition, but the central issue was whether promised assistance had reached affected people. He referred to the President’s earlier assurances of substantial compensation for damaged houses, land and roofing, and questioned whether all affected persons had in fact received relief, noting that several Members had raised similar concerns.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, today’s resolution under the Public Security Ordinance extends the emergency to provide compensation and relief to those affected by last year’s Ditha cyclone.
¶ 02 The government says many projects have been completed, while the opposition says the government lies; and the government says the opposition lies. Caught between these claims, our time gets squeezed. Still, a few truths must be stated.
¶ 03 When the Ditha cyclone struck, the President, as is his style, swiftly addressed the public to calm them, promising Rs. 5 million for those who lost houses, Rs. 5 million for those who lost land, and Rs. 1 million if even a roofing sheet flew off. Whether one takes it literally or not, people believed and calmed down. Some even lamented their area was not affected to qualify. But today the situation is different; those people have reconsidered.
¶ 04 We are used to Presidents coming to Parliament to reassure the public at such times. But have all affected received relief? No. Many Members, including from the hill-country, have said so today.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Thursday, 7 May 2026 ·No. 23540 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
- Page · column
- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
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/lk/speeches/3582
Cite as: The Hon. M.A.M. Thahir. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 7 May 2026. No. 23540. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/3582