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President seeks clarification on Resettlement Ministry’s 6,000 prefabricated houses
Cabinet approval on a Resettlement Ministry paper to award 6,000 prefabricated houses to the war-affected of the North and East, was held up this week, after President Maithripala Sirisena sought further clarification.
Resettlement Minister D.M. Swaminathan has been promoting the initiative of steel giant ArcelorMittal since 2015. Its logistics partner is Kumarca Engineering & Management (Pvt) Ltd, owned by controversial businessman Ravi Wettasinghe.
The Cabinet paper submitted on Tuesday by Minister Swaminathan mooted setting up 6,000 prefabricated steel frame houses, down from the initial 65,000 houses. Despite sustained opposition from civil society groups and the TNA, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEM) recently approved the amended proposal.
When it came before Cabinet on Tuesday, however, President Sirisena wanted to see the report of a Cabinet Appointed Negotiating Committee (CANC) that examined the terms and conditions of the project. The CANC, as previously published in the Sunday Times, has rejected the ArcelorMittal proposal and recommended that fresh tenders be called.
A group of civil society agencies and persons even put forward an alternate proposal for 102,000 masonry houses at a cost of just under Rs 1 million per house, using local labour and funded by a consortium of local banks.
But the Resettlement Ministry has disregarded both the CANC’s recommendation and the alternate proposal, in favour of ArcelorMittal’s houses, which are far more expensive than a brick-and-mortar dwelling. Minister Swaminathan has now prepared a fresh note in support of the prefabricated housing initiative. This is expected to go before Cabinet next week.
The TNA said it was “totally opposed to pre-fabricated steel houses” and called for civilians in the North and East to be provided with traditional brick houses, in keeping with their culture and way of life. All 16 MPs of the party endorsed this position.
The initial proposal–which would have compelled the Govt to borrow US$1 billion, to implement–was to build 65,000 prefab steel houses. But these have been objected to on multiple grounds including climatic unsuitability, flimsy construction, lack of durability, unjustifiably high cost and so on.
The Sectoral Oversight Committee on Rehabilitation unanimously decided in November 2016, to reject the prefab steel houses and to endorse the alternate proposal put forward by civil society. The District Coordinating Committee of the Jaffna District also passed a unanimous decision against the project in September, the same year.
TNA MP Sumanthiran has said that, if the Govt intends to slash its original proposal of 65,000 prefabricated houses for the war-displaced, down to 6,000 houses, it must call a fresh tender, as many more contractors will qualify for the smaller project and offer better prices.