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Giving me Samurdhi averted Constitutional crisis - SB

by Ravi Ladduwahetty

President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was forced to give me the Samurdhi portfolio as Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe advised her that there would have been a serious Constitutional crisis between the Executive and Parliament if she refused to do so, Minister of Samurdhi, Agriculture and Livestock Development S. B. Dissanayake charged in an interview with the Daily News yesterday.

He said that he was pleased to regain his portfolio, though belatedly.

Minister Dissanayake said that the Samurdhi programme was his brainchild in 1989 which was recommended to the President in 1990.

She overlooked the proposal in 1994 after she was elected President, he said He had also told the President that the ideal situation was to merge it with the Agriculture and Livestock portfolios aimed at causing a national economic revolution but said that the President was hesitant to give him the Samurdhi portfolio considering the powerful political base that it could create. However, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had agreed to give him that portfolio as he understood the concept and its value.

He alleged that the President had adopted diversionary tactics to delay giving him the portfolio. Complaints made to the Auditor General and the Bribery Commission were part of these diversionary tactics, he said. He said that Prime Minister Wickremesinghe had approved around 90 percent of the proposals he submitted for the program for this year. "The balance will be approved after careful study," he said

Samurdhi will get into full swing in 2003 as there was a financial crunch this year due to the overall adverse economic conditions prevalent nationally, he said.

There is a decline in savings this year up to now and in loan repayments.

He also alleged that his joining the UNF was his right as a private citizen, which he claimed. The President had taken this very personally, which was bad for her.

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