Minister Dr. Bandula Gunawardena said in a cabinet press release that if employees engaged in government services designated as essential services violate the common law of the country by engaging in trade union actions, the law will be implemented to the letter.
The minister said this while attending the press conference to announce the cabinet decisions held today.
Minister Dr. Bandula Gunawardena who further commented there,
“You may remember last year it was said that the whole country will be stopped, schools, hospitals, buses, trains, and it started in March. It didn’t happen. Therefore, this government has stopped the power cut in the country, which was cutting power for 12 hours with great difficulty. There was a situation where people had to wait in their cars for days and queue up to get fuel, but now they get mineral oil without any queue.
You don’t take a gas cylinder and go from place to place looking for gas. With great difficulty, the President has accepted this challenge and is gradually moving in a favourable direction to unravel it. The culmination of this is that the board of directors of the International Monetary Fund meet on the 20th and is ready to give us some extended funding facility and get an approval to solve the crisis in the balance of payments.
It should not be allowed to be disrupted by the government, people’s lives, children’s school education, those who do daily work in this country, those who work for hire, and those who are self-employed. For the well-being of all. These have been announced through a gazette notification as essential services for the continuous running of the public service. Transportation, ports, ports, traffic, mail, electricity have all been transformed into essential services. If the common law of the country is broken, what are the measures to be taken for it? The gazette notification says to implement the law to the letter. “