Acting Social Welfare Minister denies Sunday Lakbima report

by Nadira Gunatilleke

Acting Social Welfare Minister S. M. Chandrasena yesterday totally denied the lead story of last Sunday's (May 15) Lakbima newspaper which stated that food distributed among tsunami victims by the Women's Empowerment and Social Welfare Ministry was unfit for human consumption as the expiry date had lapsed quoting Women's Empowerment and Social Welfare Minister Simedha G. Jayasena who is abroad at the moment.

Addressing a press briefing held at his office, Battaramulla yesterday (17th), Deputy Minister Chandrasena said that the Social Welfare Ministry had never sent outdated food to tsunami victims. We always had enough food to send to the affected people. Sri Lanka received the largest amount of relief items in history after tsunami disaster.

The capacity of the harbour was not adequate to store all relief items. Some food expired while being transported to Sri Lanka by sea. Some food expired while being in Divisional secretariats. We received some complaints about the retaining of tsunami food relief without distributing it to the affected people.

Similar incidents were reported from Kalutara and Panadura. In Kalutara food items which were not suitable had been disposed of and 10,000 kgs of rice spoiled due to leakage of rain water. Some Divisional Secretaries had not distributed some of the food items among the affected people because of the unfamiliar conditions (not familiar with Sri Lankan people and they do not know how to consume them).

Ministry Secretary Ms. Sitha Rajapaksa, Director, Social Services, Yamuna Chithranganee and several other ministry officials were present.