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Leader of the Opposition Ranil Wickremesinghe told Parliament yesterday that the Government appointing Ajith Nivard Cabraal as Governor of the Central Bank was like entering a donkey to win the Derby.
The Opposition Leader’s comment came after he observed that appointing the retired army officer Asoka Thoradeniya may not help the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation to turn around its loss of Rs. 2 billion and become a profit making corporation. "Maj. Gen. Thoradeniya may have been an efficient army officer but there was a doubt whether he could make the CPC efficient," he said.
Leader of the House Nimal Siripala de Silva said "We appoint heads of corporations. Please be mindful that the government makes appointments and not the opposition."
UNP Polonnaruwa District Member Earl Gunasekera, proposing a Rs. 10 token cut on the votes of the Minister of Transport and Highways said the government had not been able to maintain the country’s road network in good condition. The British colonial rulers had left the country 75 years ago but the government did not even build a 10 kilometer expressway.
Gunasekera said the roads were so bad that it took more than four hours to travel a distance of about 50 kilometers especially in rural districts. There had been a number of expressways started, but so far the Colombo-Katunayake expressway or Colombo-Matara expressway are incomplete. In fact no work was started on the Colombo-Kandy expressway but the work the previous UNP government started seemed to have been abandoned.
