The Defence Ministry will submit a new Cabinet paper to solve issues related to pensions and allowances of disabled persons of the security forces and the police soon.
Defence Secretary Maj.Gen. (Retd) Kamal Gunaratne urged Ministry officials to expedite work to solve discrepancies in the pension and allowances by preparing a fresh Cabinet paper.
“It is our duty and responsibility to clear technical discrepancies with regard to pension and allowances payments for disabled war veterans, families and their widows,” he said.
At a meeting at the Defence Ministry with the participation of the Tri-Forces commanders, high ranking Police officials and Ministry officials, last week, he said President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa had pledged to solve issues related to pensions after they were elected.
“The President and Prime Minister are committed to solve this issue. As a former soldier, I also do empathise with the claimants, and clearly, when they had urged for a pay earlier, they were supplemented with an allowance which is at the core of the issue”, he said.
According to Maj.Gen. Gunaratne, the first Cabinet paper to address pension and allowances issues of disabled war veterans were forwarded on March 12, 2019, which was later, referred to a sub-committee which included senior officials from the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Defence and the Pensions Department.
“The requests to discuss the matter with relevant officials during the last regime were denied to disabled war veterans and their families who had demonstrated their displeasure over the issue. Subsequently, the Finance Ministry towards the latter stages of 2019 approved the payment as allowances instead of adding it to the pension payment,” he said assuring to solve their issues regarding the pension, allowances and other payments.
“I want to reiterate that the war heroes are not beggars to solve their grievances by holding demonstrations on pavements.They have a dignity,” Defence Secretary said adding that the strikers need not to be politically motivated to win their demands when there is a leader who is always open for fair negotiations. Accordingly, the revised cabinet paper is to scrutinise the issue under four categories: Disabled/Unmarried; Disabled/Married; Deceased/Unmarried; Deceased/Married.
- News.lk