'Tsunami houses not benefiting tsunami affected'

Fred Silva Jinasena - Telwatta group correspondent

A large number of tsunami beneficiary houses constructed in tsunami housing complexes in the Hikkaduwa Divisional Secretariat Division are kept under lock and key since 2005 while some of these houses have even been damaged.

According to the tsunami displaced persons residing in some of the houses in the complex, most of these houses were taken over by those unaffected from the tsunami through illegal ways.

"Some of those residing in these houses are outsiders. They were not living in this area when the tsunami occurred. As they have several houses in other areas, they have given out these houses on rent and some of them have even been sold," residents said.

They added that some of the officers attached to the DS office are having beneficiary houses to their names and their relations' names. These houses are either given on rent or sold out, they said.

Complaints have been made on these unlawful matters to higher authorities since 2006, but so far investigations have not been done, displaced residents said.

There are many tsunami displaced families living in the Pereliya area with their parents and they have not been issued beneficiary houses yet.

On an appeal made to the President in 2006 regarding the non issues of beneficiary houses for those who lived in Pereliya and Telwatta, the DS Hikkaduwa, on replying to the Presidential Secretariat with copies to the complainants, has informed that the beneficiary houses for A G P Sularie and Anoja de Silva of Pereliya have been donated in 2006. But the DS has so far failed to do so, the displaced persons said.