courtesy ‘mirrorcitizen.lk

President Maithripala Sirisena said yesterday the government expects to get the assistance of foreign specialists to seek the possibility of taking forward the Uma Oya project by preventing the negative affects caused to the people.

The residents have to face the negative effects of this project which had been implemented only on political decisions and by neglecting the advice of the engineers. Though the groups which had drained millions of rupees through wrong political decisions and committed financial frauds are silent in the midst of the people’s protests today, the government will carry out an investigation against them,” he said.

He said this at a ceremony held yesterday in Nuwara Eliya.

When the current government came to power, the possibility to stop this project was examined. But we couldn’t stop it because 2/3rds of the project had been completed by that time. Furthermore, we had to consider moving the project forward because of the huge loan which had been obtained from the Iranian government for this project,” the President said.

He said he had discussions with local and foreign specialists about the actions to be taken now and that a German specialist on mining has started investigations and another group of specialists would arrive in Sri Lanka to carry out further studies.

Referring to the people’s protest, the President said the Ceylon Electricity Board employees said they were carrying out this protest because the former government  had given salary increments only for those in higher posts and did not provide any pay hike to those in the lower ranks. Expressing his views on the protests against SAITM, he said that issue was also created by the previous government.
The President said Facebook and social media web sites were an obstacle to building national unity and religious reconciliation in the country. Extremist groups using this medium are attempting to create unrest in the country and all should understand this situation,”he said.