Kiriella asks for his share of credit for Central Highway project

By Saman Indrajith

Chief Opposition Whip and Kandy District SJB MP Lakshman Kiriella on Tuesday (18) said that the government should be ashamed of taking the credit for the construction of the 41-km long second phase of the Central Expressway by building only a four-kilometre stretch of it.

Addressing the media at the Opposition Leader’s office in Colombo, MP Kiriella said that the yahapalana government had completed 37 out of 41 km stretch of the Central Expressway from Mirigama to Kurunegala. “It is shameful that the government was showing off it as their work. They did not even mention that we almost completed the construction except for four kilometres,” he said.

Kiriella said that when the yahapalana government came to power in 2015 not even an inch of land had been surveyed to construct the stretch from Kadawatha to Galagedara. “After we came to power we planned the expressway from Kadawatha to Galagedara in three phases. We had 20,000 plots of lands surveyed, acquired them and also paid compensation to their owners. Thereafter when the construction began. It was I who spoke for the need to give the contract to local contractors. In that manner, for the first time in expressway constructing history, we gave the contract for the section from Mirigama to Kurunegala to a local contractor. We could have completed the work if not for the constitutional coup that lasted 52 days in 2018.

“We had finished 37 km of the 41 km long expressway. The present government took two and a half years to complete the remaining four kilometres. It is shameful that they did not even thank the yahaplana government for constructing 37 kilometres. The government has nothing to show today. Last Sunday, it opened several projects in Kandy that had been completed by our government. It was on my request that a recreation park was constructed by the former minister Champika Ranawaka near the Dalada Mailgawa. Last Sunday, the government ministers declared it open as if they had done it.

“In 2014, the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa laid foundation stones at several places to construct the Central Expressway but did nothing more than that. Not even an inch of land had been surveyed. It was the yahapalana government that had to pay compensations for that,” said the former Highways Minister Kiriella.