June 07, 2010: Parliamentarian Vijitha Herath of the Democratic National Alliance (DNA) yesterday sounded a warning that there are moves through CEPA, (Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement), to bring down Indian labour to the Sri Lankan market when there were thousands of Sri Lankans languishing without jobs.
Addressing a media briefing yesterday morning, the DNA parliamentarian said that the government was hoping to bring in Indian labour through the CEPA agreement to be signed between Sri Lanka and India.
“This has yet to be forwarded to parliament. However, the relevant ministries are prepared to sign the CEPA agreement that was not forwarded to the legislature by the executive.
“Therefore, this entire agreement needs to be forwarded to parliament as soon as possible. Through CEPA, room will be made for Indian labour to come into the Sri Lankan labour market.
“This is a very dangerous situation, because we know only too well that there are thousands of unemployed youth in Sri Lanka.
“This is a clear case of attempting to force CEPA on us under cover of IIFA, the Indian International Film Awards.
Commenting on the IIFA awards, Herath said that there was a lot of noise on the event, which concluded in the wee hours of last morning.
“All of you saw that despite the big noise, IIFA did not bring much good to the country, to Sri Lankan artistes or to the Lankan arts industry.
“We are saddened by the fact that the government has spent over Rs. 600 million of public money on Indian artistes and their sector instead of taking measures to promote artistic creations of Sri Lanka at a time when the culture, local artistes and the Lankan industry are at a high standard,” pointed out Vijitha Herath.
