Those who had once fooled the people with lies such as golden horses and Lamborghinis owned by the Rajapaksas and spread rumours about their non-existing properties and assets now were again working hard to make people believe that there was unprecedented destruction of the environment, says Chief Government Whip Highways Minister Johnston Fernando.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Vari Saubhaagya project with the renovation and dredging of the Mahawewa at Pinnapolegama in Nikaweratiya recently, the Minister said that the JVP and SJB had their activists and so-called environmentalists working overtime publishing social media posts of a government sponsored forest clearing spree.

“Some of them have taken pictures of forests cleared in foreign countries from the internet and edited and put them up on Facebook to mislead the public. This shows their political bankruptcy. “Soon before the 2015 presidential election, they propagated lies and got some people to believe wild allegations such as golden horses, expensive cars, hotels and acres of lands belonging to the Rajapaksas. Some people seemed to have accepted their lies about Rajapaksas owning hotels, resorts and lands. That would not happen again. If the SJB and JVP liars think that people would fall again for their lies, then they are mistaken. When we built the Lankagama road they clamoured from their rooftops that we were felling trees in the rain forest. Then we pointed out that there was not a single tree felled under that project. Thereafter, there was an uproar calling for a crudia zeylanica tree ; they claimed it was the one and only such tree in the entire world. That show came to an end when people found that there are many other such trees in this country.”

Fernando said that the incumbent government had been formed with the votes of the people who had been promised a developed country in return for their votes. “We are bound to develop this country. It is as a part of those development projects we construct roads. According to the SJB and JVP the purpose of constructing roads is not providing people with means of access and of transporting their produce to the market but to cut the trees and damage the environment.  We develop this country while conserving the environment. Today, we started a project to plant 75,000 saplings along the expressways in the country. This is in addition to 100,000 saplings to be planted along the roads coming under the purview of the Ministry of Highways.”

He said that times and people’s needs had changed and the government had to work in line with the aspirations of the people today and not as per the archaic regulations in the gazettes issued in the 1800s. “We have to update ourselves as per the needs of the time we are living in. Provisions of the old gazettes would no longer suit the situation prevailing now. We must do away with them when those regulations no longer serve the purposes or stand as stumbling blocks on our way to develop this country for the betterment of people’s lives of people.”

The Minister said that the yahapalana government had imposed Rs 1,000 tax on a cube of metal and it would be removed soon so that the metal crushers of the quarries in Anuradhapura and Kurunegala districts would benefit.

Minister Fernando said the government would not allow its development drive to be derailed by the Opposition and various outfits pretending to be environmental groups.