Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena has instructed the Provincial Governors not to take any step that would be detrimental to the cooperatives.
Speaking at a discussion held with the Provincial Governors at the Prime Minister’s Office in Colombo, he said that the cooperative movement is the giant hand that built the rural economy of Sri Lanka.
He further said, “Information evidence in every Provincial Council proves that the cooperatives have become a dying movement. It is not the government officials who are in the cooperatives.
They are the “members of the village. The officials need to give them strength. Some of them are production societies, and some of them are distribution societies. For the rise of cooperative movement again we need to activate the identified aspects that are lagging behind.”
The Prime Minister instructed every officer including the cooperative commissioners to get ready and work immediately. This movement is important even before the implementation of the law. In order to strengthen the production and distribution chain, try your best to give breath as much as possible to the cooperative movement that had once been the heart of the rural economy and don’t help to strike it down, he said.
Mr. Anura Dissanayake, Secretary to the Prime Minister, Mr. Priyantha Mayadunne, Secretary of the Ministry of Public Administration, Southern Province Governor Willie Gamage, Uva Province Governor A.J. Musammil, Western Province Governor Roshan Gunathilake, North Western Province Governor Wasantha Karnnagoda, Central Province Governor Lalith U. Gamage, Northern Province Governor Jeevan Thyagaraja, Eastern Province Governor Anuradha Yahampath and provincial secretaries and officials took part in the event. (NewsWire)