Housing Minister Wimal Weerawansa and UNP Hambantota District MP Sajith Premadasa locked horns in Parliament yesterday on the number of houses built by the National Housing Development Authority (NHDA) in the decade between 1978 and ’88.
Minister Weerawansa told Parliament the NHDA built only 370,276 houses in the 10-year period. Mr. Premadasa accused Mr. Weerawansa of presenting false information to the House. “A report was presented by the Leader of the House, Nimal Siripala de Silva, to the UN habitat conference, details of which were presented to Parliament in which the number of houses constructed differed from the figure given by the Housing Minister,” Mr. Premadasa said.
Minister de Silva said the numbers given in the report presented at the UN conference included not only completed houses but also incomplete houses. He said even a room that was given a coat of paint was included to bump up housing numbers. Minister Weerawansa said he obtained the statistics from the NHDA. “I did not ask them to reduce the number of the houses built when [President] Ranasinghe Premadasa was the Housing Minister,” he added.
The issue came up when Minister Weerawansa responded to a question raised by UNP MP Ravi Karunanayake.
According to figures presented to Parliament, the Minister said, a total of 299,593 houses were built between 1989 and ’94; a total of 462,419 houses were built between 1995 and 2009, and 1,210 houses were built up to June 2010. A total of 1,133,498 houses were built between 1978 and June 30, 2010. |
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