JVP: Govt. using brawn, not brains

By Saman Indrajith

The incumbent government is headed by those who use their brawn instead of brains to solve problems, says the JVP.

JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake, addressing the media at the party headquarters, in Pelawatte yesterday said that problems confronted by the people and their grievances could not be solved by muscle power, but the rulers needed to put their heads together to work out solutions.

“The ministers try to solve people’s problems using their muscle power. The best example was the recent raids carried out against rice millers. The government vowed to break down the so-called rice mafia and got its men to raid warehouses and stores and showed those raids on TV with drama and suspense. The raids could recover only eight hundred kilos of rice. The amount recovered had no significance because the country’s daily consumption of rice was at six million kilos a day. The show of coercive power has not yielded significant results,” Dissanayake said.

“In purchasing paddy the government introduced a controlled price instead of a certified price. If the government had introduced a certified price, the farmers could have made use of that price as the bottom price and could have sold their harvest to a higher price. As a result of controlled prices, they had to sell their paddy at 50 rupees a kilo. After the farmers have sold their paddy, a new price of 55 rupees a kilo has been introduced. Farmers lost five rupees from each kilo because of that jumbling of prices.

“Tea industry is now in its last legs because the plantations could not get chemical input. Tea smallholders have found that they could not yield their normal produce using organic fertilisers. Similarly the maize cultivations too are on the verge of collapse because maize seeds need chemical inputs. Usually, this country imports 1,500 metric tonnes of maize seed. Owing to uncertainty this year the imports decreased to 600 metric tonnes. Of that only around 150 metric tonnes have been sold for cultivation. This shows the uncertainty in the minds of farmers to cultivate maize. This will have direct repercussions on agriculture-output.

“The government promised to help 200,000 farmers, using organic fertilisers. They promised to give each farmer Rs 210,000 to start with. The government put up advertisements promising that. It revised the number of 200,000 farmers to 100,000. Thereafter it announced that each farmer would be paid Rs 150,000. Thereafter the number of farmers to receive the government incentive was reduced from 100,000 to 10,000 and the amount of funds promised decreased to Rs 110,000. Finally the government revised its numbers again and said that one farmer from each Agrarian Service Centre would be given the incentive. There are around 560 such centres in the country. That was how the number of farmers using organic fertiliser was brought down from 200,000 to 560. The senior ministers should have had their heads examined before launching such projects.”