Ask the Minister: Matters of Public Interest 

A chat with S. B. Dissanayake, Minister of Social Empowerment and Welfare 

Some of our readers will be very interested in getting to know the progress of the present government and the future plans of the Ministers. With the endeavour of creating awareness in this regard, Life Online met up with some Ministers and asked them a few questions. Their answers will be carried in this weekly column. This week, we speak to S. B. Dissanayake, Minister of Social Empowerment and Welfare. 

What are the areas that come under the purview of your Ministry? 

This Ministry handles some of the most difficult issues in the country. We have to take care of the poorest people in Sri Lanka and elevate them from their state of poverty. The senior citizens as well as the disabled sector of society also come under the purview of this Ministry. This segment of people need to be rehabilitated and assisted. The environment around them has to be made more comfortable. Then there are also the people with various addictions. They need to be directed to proper rehabilitation centres. That is also part of our Ministry. 

What is the biggest problem faced by your Ministry? 

Samurdhi was a programme started by former President Chandrika Bandaranaike and myself some years ago. When the previous regime was in power Basil Rajapakse combined it with the Upcountry Development Authority and the Southern Development Authority and named it Divineguma Department.  The staff in this department have so many problems which have never been looked into by the previous regime. There are approximately 10,000 vacancies to be filled. Positions of retired, resigned and deceased have also not been filled. So this I would say is a big problem to us. 

Can you tell me about the Poverty Elevation programme? 

When we started Samurdhi the percentage of people in poverty was 27.8% but today it is 6.7%. At that time many mothers died during childbirth, the infant death rate was high, many underweight babies were born, there were illegal births taking place and many issues like that. The reason for this was, at that time the economy had collapsed due to chaos created by the JVP, LTTE and other armed organisations. 

We didn’t believe that just continuing to give financial assistance was going to solve the problem of poverty. We had studied in depth some poverty elevation schemes of other countries such as the Grameen programme conducted in Bangladesh, Sewa programme in India, Samuel Don Programme in South Korea, People’s Community Development Society in China and the Kibbutz programme in Israel. Accordingly we took part of the financial aid and made bank societies, insurance schemes, social security schemes and also separated a fund for building houses. This fund has more money than most of the banks in this country. 

Who handles these funds? 

All these years the funds have been just sitting in State Banks accumulating very low interest rates of 5% and 4%. Now we have handed this money to a fund manager. We called in for tenders and quite a number of private and government institutions forwarded their proposals. We picked the most viable proposal which was forwarded by the National Savings Bank and The Bank of Ceylon. Now this huge fund is managed well and the whole system is digitalized. We have also developed a number of schemes to help the people. 

As the President has declared this year as the Poverty Elevation Year, we have formulated a new family development programme where we help families to overcome their financial problems. 

All these funds that have been collected, for what is it used? 

97% of the entrepreneurs in our country are involved in very small industries. They are not the big time business people. Although this fund is to help this segment of people it didn’t happen before. None of this money was given to the people in the last ten years. These small entrepreneurs are unable to get guarantors to get loans and they also have no properties to mortgage. Because of this reason the loan sharks started giving loans on very high interest - ‘Gini Poli’ and made a lot of money. Now the villages are full of this mafia of loan sharks and the people are trapped by this system. Up to now we have identified 41 organisations of loan sharks. There are so many more that are yet to be identified. 

We have started helping these people to get out of these traps and get into other programmes that provide financial assistance. We hope to eradicate all these loan sharks by the end of this year. 

How are drug addicts integrated into society? 

Most of these drug addicts are sent to us by the Police and the Courts. Sometimes even parents hand over to us, children who have turned out to be drug addicts. We keep them in our rehabilitation centres until they are fully rehabilitated and then hand them over to the respective villages. 

What has been the success rate of rehabilitating these drug addicts? 

The success rate is about 50%. The problem is the other 50% fall back into the same habit. We need to have more rehabilitation centres and develop this area so that we can achieve a higher success rate. We are in the process of getting these things done. 

What facilities are available for children with special needs and disabled children? 

Most of these children are able to do something. If their talents and skills can be identified they can do a lot with their lives. What we do is, we identify what they are good at and help them to focus on those areas. For example, there are some children who repair bicycles and radios, do sewing and carpentry etc. When trained in one skill they become experts in that particular skill. Some of these children sew leather bags, footwear and many things and they do it very well. We give them the training required. 

If one has a child with special needs how would they set about finding this assistance given by your Ministry? 

We have social service workers in every Divisional Secretariat. They will guide such people in the right direction and help them to get started. 

Some of the Elders’ Homes are in a pretty bad state. What are your comments? 

Yes, the standards of the Elders Homes are in a very bad condition. There are only 7 or 8 Homes run by the state. Others are all run by volunteer organisation. They run with a very small staff so they find it very difficult to manage. The inmates are not bathed frequently and they live under very unhygienic conditions. When you walk in to some of these homes, they have a foul smell as they have not been cleaned. Toilets are broken. We are in the process of sorting out all these issues. These elders are given a monthly amount of Rs. 2000 which is delivered to their homes. From that amount we have started deducting Rs. 100 from each recipient. With that collection we get approximately Rs. 450,000 which is quite a substantial amount. This money as well as money from the Samurdhi funds will be used to repair and upgrade the Elders Homes and bring it to a better standard. 

Did you know? 

He was former General Secretary of Sri Lanka Freedom Party and former National Organizer of the United National Party.