Schoolchildren got milk only for two days

– UNP

by Zacki Jabbar

The government’s much publicised provision of a daily glass of milk to school children in Nuwara Eliya, in the aftermath of Hatton farmers pouring 35,000 litres of unsold milk down the drains had lasted for only two days, the UNP said yesterday.

Media spokesman of the UNP Gayantha Karunathillake, MP, told a news conference in Colombo that the ceremony to launch the free glass of milk programme for school children on a daily basis, had been conducted in the full glare of television cameras with several Ministers in attendance, but just like all Mahinda Chintana programmes it had crashed in just two days, he said.

Milk farmers refused to supply milk to the schools, because the authorities had not paid them as promised. Earlier, they had been forced to pour 35,000 litres of milk onto the streets and into waterways, because their produce was not purchased, Karunathillake said, adding that SLFP led governments had a history of heaping untold sufferings on the people.

Karunathillake said that the Rajapaksa regime was even cheating innocent children after having taken the pensioners for a ride with bogus election promises.

The paddy farmers had also been duped with the fertiliser subsidy being reduced gradually. Cases in point included Vavuniya and Minipe, where farmers had been given only 50 percent and 80 percent respectively of the subsidy, MP Karunathillake noted.

But, the Rajapaksa regime had the audacity to say that people were not dying of starvation. Such stupid and sarcastic remarks were being made because of its inability to understand the sufferings of the poor who were certainly dying, he said.

Karunathillake said that the people were now regretting that the UNP was not in power, since the Rajapaksa rule had left them totally bankrupt with the little they owned mortgaged to heartless money lenders.

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