Members of the Civil Defence Force CDF) are without permanent positions and pensions even though they have rendered a yeoman service during the time of war to protect border villages, the JVP said in Parliament today.
JVP Parliamentary Group Leader MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake making a special statement said that several public statements have been made including in Parliament that their service would be made permanent career and they too would be made entitled for a pension, no such action as taken.
The MP said that nothing of that sort has happened and their lives have been pushed into poverty that has made them take up other jobs. “They have been reduced to brick makers, chena cultivators, farmers and inland fishermen. In some areas CDF members have been ordered to catch and sell fish and to submit Rs 300 from the income to the CDF daily,’ he said.
MP Dissanayake asked what action would be taken to ensure these men and women with job guarantee, and a system of promotions, transfers in the line of other similar government departments.
