President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said that the disaster caused by Cyclone Ditva will not be used to reverse or disable the government’s program under any circumstances.
The President expressed these views while participating in the inauguration ceremony of the ‘REBUILDING SRI LANKA’ national program introduced to efficiently manage the country’s reconstruction program.
The President emphasized that the country, which had faced an economic disaster, had to face the cyclone at a time when it was gradually rebuilding, but the government did not feel the need to be sheltered from it at any time.
The President stated that nearly 2.4 million people representing 700,000 families were affected by Cyclone Ditva and about 6,000 houses were lost, and that about 110,000 houses were partially damaged due to the disaster. He also said that an estimate of Rs. 500 billion has been approved to spend on the disaster alone.
Expressing further views, the President said:
“We could have saved ourselves by putting a lot of things on this disaster if necessary. We have been moving in that way in history. For 30 years, we attributed all the destruction to war. That is what we had. We used certain epidemic situations as a cover for this disaster. We had no need to reverse or disable our program. We have come to a decision that we will not use this to.”