A Commission should be appointed to carry out an investigation on “Aragalaya” and produce a report to the House, former President Maithripala Sirisena said in Parliament yesterday (18).
Sri Lanka Freedom Party Polonnaruwa district MP Maithripala Sirisena made this observation joining the second reading debate on the 2023 budget proposals.
“We should not forget the Aragalaya.We all need to keep the lessons we learnt from it in our minds. All the revolutions such as in 1971, 1988, 1989 and Aragalaya which came with a different approach were all against corrupt politicians, political system and public service. I don’t see that this government is managing the situation that led to it. We need to appoint a Commission and the House should get a report on it and make people aware of it,” MP Sirisena noted.
He also noted that there was no use of doing political postmortems in the previous decades. Instead, all political parties should focus on ensuring economic and social stability for future generations, he said.
MP Sirisena noted that the budget 2023 includes some proposals that they can agree with while some others are not. Sirisena noted that managing local expenditure and utilizing resources are crucial to get out from the prevailing economic crisis. Social justice, independence, discipline, human rights, democracy, and law should be upheld in order to properly manage the political crisis in the country, Sirisena also added.
MP Sirisena also said the government should pay special attention to farmers’ communities as they have been seriously affected by the fertilizer ban followed by the economic crisis.
MP Sirisena noted that in Sri Lanka, one fourth of food meant for the people’s consumption is destroyed by wild animals. However, Sri Lanka being a Buddhist country cannot solve the matter of increased numbers of animals like other countries.
