Transport, Highways and Mass Media Minister Dr. Bandula Gunawardena said that the law will be enforced to the letter against persons who violate orders regarding declarations of essential services.
He said that it is confirmed through the gazette notification issued declaring them as essential services. He was speaking at the weekly Cabinet press briefing at the Government Information Department yesterday.
The Minister said that the government has taken these decisions with an objective of maintaining public services continuously for the well-being of people’s lives.
He said that the government succeeded in ending 12 hour power cut with great difficulty. “We ended the era in which people had to wait for hours in queues to get fuel to their vehicles “They can buy fuel without any queues. They do not have to carry a gas cylinder and walk from place to place looking for gas,” he said.
The Ministry said that the President has accepted this challenge with great difficulty. “We are now moving in a positive direction which will enable us to unravel this situation”, he stressed.
He said that the Board of Directors of the International Monetary Fund is scheduled to meet on March 20 and it will approve us extended funding facility to solve the crisis in the balance of payments.
Because the government should prevent this process being disrupted, and on behalf of the well-being of all, including people’s lives, children’s school education, those who engage in work for daily wages in this country as well as those who are self-employed, and to ensure that government services are maintained continuously without interruption, certain services such as travel, ports, harbours, transport, postal services, electricity have been declared as essential services through a gazette notification. If the common law of the country is broken, the measures to be taken will be decided upon after the violations. The gazette notification states that the law has to be implemented to the letter.
“Because the government should prevent this process being disrupted, and on behalf of the well-being of all, including people’s lives, children’s school education, those who engage in work for daily wages in this country as well as those who are self-employed, and to ensure that government services are maintained continuously without interruption, certain services such as ports, harbours, transport, postal services, electricity have been declared as essential services through a gazette notification”, the Minister said.
He said that if the law of the country is broken the measures to be taken will be decided upon after the violations. The Minister said that the notification states that the law has to be implemented to the letter.
“You may remember that last week also it was said that the entire country will come to a standstill, schools will close, hospitals will not operate, buses and trains will stop running, and they started in March saying that they will continue with it for a week. That did not happen,” he said.