Minister tells plantation companies: ‘Hand over estates to govt., if you can’t pay Rs. 1,000’

Plantation Companies should hand over their estates to the government if they cannot pay a daily wage of Rs. 1,000 to plantation workers, Public Enterprise, Kandyan Heritage and Kandy City Development Minister Lakshman Kiriella said.

He was speaking at the opening of the meeting hall of the Gampola Urban Council recently.

Minister Kiriella who said that the Gampola electorate was an important landmark in his political journey, said he first contested and won in Gampola after joining the UNP. He hoped to join hands with all, including the Tamils who had flocked round them, and continue the good service rendered by them in the future too.

Minister Kiriella said the plantation worker problem was a major problem today.

The workers had launched protest campaigns demanding a daily wage of Rs. 1,000. As a person who had held the Plantation Industries portfolio on two occasions, he considered the Rs. 1,000 demand as a justifiable demand.

Plantation companies were making immense profits after getting maximum work from the workers.

These companies were trying to cheat the workers by showing wrong and inflated accounts.

He said he wished to tell the country and its people that the government was on the side of the plantation workers.

He would therefore issue a challenge to plantation companies to hand over their estates to the government, if they could not pay the Rs. 1,000 daily wage to workers.

(Source: Daily News)