By Saman Indrajith

The Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) says the government has given up the fight against the pandemic and was leaving the infected persons to their fate.

Addressing the media at the Opposition Leader’s office in Colombo, Chief Opposition Whip and Kandy District MP Lakshman Kiriella said: “It is clear that the government has given up its fight against the pandemic. The number of infections is increasing rapidly, but the government does not care to conduct enough tests. It imposed laws limiting the number of participants for weddings, funerals and religious ceremonies and it violates them by holding political meeting. For example the number of persons allowed for a wedding is 50 but the ministers attending political meetings attended by minsiters are allowed to have over crowds of over 500.The leading ministers are conducting a series of events in provinces under the title Gama Samaga Pilisandarak (Dialogue with the Village). Its Matara event was attended by over 500 persons. On Dec 17 the Kandy District event was held at Polgolla with the participation of all heads of public institutions, police officers, Pradeshiya Sabha members, heads of department, and they were hosted to a lunch. Later, an infected Pradeshiya Sabha chairman was found to have attended that event. Now, all leading public officials in the district are under quarantine.

 “Two months ago there was no COVID-19 cases in the Kandy District. But the government put COVID-19 infected persons in the Bomgambara Prison. Today Kandy is the district from where the second most number of cases has been reported. Many institutions in the city have been shut down. The Governor’s Office, provincial and zonal education offices are all closed. But the Gama Samaga Pilisandarak event was held with the participation of over 500 persons. This shows that the government has given up its anti-COVID-19 campaign.

 “There is still no final decision with regard to the burial of Muslim COVID-19 victims. The government is quite capable for taking the internal problem to the international level. It conducted secret talks with the Maldives to see whether it could find places there to bury Lankan Muslims dying from COVID-19. The secret came out after the government of the Maldives made a statement that the Sri Lankan government had made a request to the effect. It is a shameful act to try to bury our citizens in a foreign country. The government should solve this problem urgently.

“The government has also lost control over the country as well. It has failed to control the prices of essential commodities. There were some shortcomings in the yahapalana government, but we never lost the control over prices of essential items. We had a committee on cost of living affairs and it met fortnightly to keep the prices under control. Today, there is no such control of prices and the consumers are at the mercy of traders.”

SJB Colombo District MP Mano Ganesan also addressed the media.