He made this observation participating at the launching of the Five Year National Plan of 2016-2020 for the Social Development of the Plantation Sector at the BMICH yesterday. Addressing the occasion, the Prime Minister said that President Maithripala Sirisena received the people's mandate on January 8 to give back all the rights of people they deserved. This was a revolutionary change since all the assets and rights had been stolen during the previous decade. "Still we are unable to determine the value of the stolen assets and only 1000 billion rupees have been identified.

"The previous regime could have provided not the houses but palaces to all people of this country by using the money that they spent to buy eight planes and also on the hedging deal." said the Prime Minister adding that they(the last regime) had spent Rs.211 billion to purchase planes and Rs.180 billion on the hedging deal.

Though the previous regime failed to provide houses to the people in Jaffna they had built palace for their own comfort.

"In Panama, there are three palaces built by them and all these three palaces are situated only 20 feet away from the beach. Each palace includes a swimming pool, bar, sauna, living room, dining room, kitchen, two rooms and two bathrooms." he said.

He also said that people in Jaffna, the East and the plantation community have no houses and people in the South have no deeds for their lands. But there was a massive programme of stealing public property. Because of that there was a huge gap between the income and expenditure. Now they have revealed the loans taken by them. "Though we have to pay back all these loans, we haven''t stopped the development activities," he said.

Currently there is an attempt of bring a no confidence motion to avoid the process of finding thieves in previous the Rajapaksa regime.

He further said that anyone can bring a no confidence motion against the Prime Minister or any other minister after completing the process of finding thieves. Sometimes a no confidence motion could be bought against an ordinary parliamentarian and not against a minister. "The person, against whom a no confidence motion can be brought could be decide later and first we have to continue the process of catching thieves by appointing a parliamentary committee," said the Prime Minister.

The Premier also questioned as to who is responsible for nearly 180 kilograms of gold seized by Sri Lanka Army during the last stages of civil war adding that Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka also claimed that he had handed over around 220 kilogrames of gold.

(dailynews.lk)