Labour and Foreign Employment Minister Manusha Nanayakkara yesterday slammed Finance Ministry officials for their failure to protect the fisheries industriy and the fishing community.

Addressing a meeting held at his Ministry, Minister Nanayakkara said that as a result of lack of understanding of realities, the Finance Ministry officials had not been able to prepare a viable programme to protect fishermen and develop the country’s fisheries sector.

Minister Nanayakkara pointed out that the Ministry of Finance officials’ actions indicate they did not have a proper understanding of the valuable contribution made by the fisheries sector to the development of the economy.

The meeting held at the Ministry of Labour and Foreign Employment was attended by the stakeholders of the fisheries sector.

The meeting was part of a series of such events organised under the “Garu Saru” programme, initiated by the Ministry of Labour and Foreign Employment to uphold the dignity, security and professional status of all those employed in the informal economic sector in the country.

“In other countries, whether a person is a fisherman, a plumber, a doctor or an engineer, they have the same level of respect. In our country, people are divided on party lines, ethnicity and also according to their professions. This is to take various advantages.

“But as our main programme, our Ministry started an initiative to ensure that the workforce in the informal sector of this country gets the dignity, security and professional status enjoyed by those engaged in the so-called formal sector.

“There are only 2.5 million employees in the country on record. But there are another six million who contribute to the economy. You are among those people. But there was no programme to protect this group. That is why we have started this programme to give dignity, security and respect to these 6 million workers. Also, we aim to introduce a proper social security mechanism for these workers to protect them when they are unable to work and when they are old.