Nation’s gratitude to War Heroes – Defence Secy

Rasika Somarathna

President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the outset decided that the gift of housing is one of the best and most tangible way of demonstrating our gratitude and appreciation towards War Heroes, Defence and Urban Development Ministry Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said yesterday.

The Defence Secretary was speaking at a ceremony at the BMICH held to felicitate nearly 1400 Tri-Service personnel involved in the construction of houses under the programme in 14 districts.

Choosing War Heroes to receive houses under the ‘Api Wenuwen Api’ programme is being carried out in a very fair and transparent manner to ensure that most suitable and deserving are chosen as recipients.

He noted the choosing recipients and the mangement of the housing fund is being administered in a very transparent manner with a special panel overseeing the process in order to ensure fairness, accuracy and accountability.

He added that the process was being carried out strictly under the provisions of the act in this regard and recipients were chosen in line with guidelines laid down by the Board of Mangement of the Fund, in order to ensure that there was no room for discrimination.

The Secretary whilst noting the the programme has made impressive strides added that he was looking at possibilities to speed up the construction of houses further so as to hand them over to needy war hero families at the earliest.

He said the government had adopted various methods in this regard, such as, constructing housing schemes and providing them to war heroes under concessionery rates, constructing houses with the help of Tri-Forces welfare societies and various government departments and organizations.

“Later the ‘Api Wenuwen Api’ housing project was launched with funds recived from various quarters to build homes for war heroes who possess a plot of land but do not have the financial means to construct houses, “the Secretary explained.

He said the President himself had visited all 14 districts where the programme is implemented. He said that the objective of the project is to uplift the living standards of the families of war heroes by assisting them to build their own houses on plot of lands owned by them.

The Secretary paying a glowing tribute to Tri-Forces teams invloved in the construction of houses said they were rendering yeomen service in ensuring a quality house for their needy colleagues.

Altogether eight officres and 1,381 Armed Forces personel from other ranks were felicitated with their service being recognized and rewarded. These consisted 603 personel from the Army, 522 from Navy and 256 from Air Force.

“Api Wenuwen Api” housing project is a concept of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and operates under the close guidance and instructions of Secretary to the Ministry of Defence and Urban Development Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. The Sewa Vanitha Unit of the Ministry of Defence spearheaded by Ioma Rajapaksa closely supervises the implementation of the project.

The Api Wenuwen Api Fund is a collaboration between the the Ministry of Defence and the Central Bank of Sri Lanka to build 50,000 houses for the serving Tri-Service personnel. Yesterdays event was attended by Tri-Forces Commanders, the Chief of Defence Staff, head of the Seva Vanitha Unit of the Ministry of Defence and members, the head of Media Centre for National Security and officers of the three services.