Woes and worries of common man will end soon - Azath Salley

by Ananda Kannangara

In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Observer former Deputy Mayor of Colombo Azath Salley said he has a firm belief that nearly 140,000 voters in the Colombo Central region will definitely endorse his policies and elect him as member of Parliament on April 8.

Forty six year old Salley recalled his schooling days at the D.S. Senanayaka Vidyalaya, Colombo where he showed keen interest towards in social activities which had helped him to climb up the ladder in politics.

A banker by profession, Salley served the Colombo Municipal Council as a Councillor from 1997 and was later served as Deputy Mayor from 2002 to 2006.

Salley started his political career in 1991 when he joined the UNP in 1995, and after several years quit the party, over a policy decision just prior to the last Presidential Election in December 2009.

When asked as to what made him to quit the UNP, Salley pointed out that he was not happy with the decision taken by the UNP leadership to support General Sarath Fonseka at the Presidential Election. “Although Fonseka was a good Commander of the Sri Lanka Army who was a tower of strength to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, thus winning the three decade old war with the LTTE, in my opinion the former commander was not the right person to govern the country”, he opined.

He said that when the UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and several others met at the party headquarters, `Sirikotha’ and made the announcement to support Sarath Fonseka. I openly voiced my views by criticising the decision and reiterated that Ranil Wickremesinghe should contest under the Elephant symbol for the sake of the very people who still loved the party.

“I think I did make the correct decision after scrutinising the number of UNP votes polled at the Presidential Election”, he said.

He said he never resigned from the party but instead the UNP sacked him from the party.

“This shocking decision prompted me to join the Government with a sole intention of helping the people in my electorate and the suburban electorates”.

Speaking about the lack of educational facilities of a large number of downtrodden children in the city of Colombo, especially who lived in shanties, Salley showed statistics that the number of children do not attend schools purely due to poverty.“It is our duty to visit these families and help them to start their education under a better environment.”

“To fulfil that objective, I have plans to construct at least two schools in the city and also preschools with daycare centres so that no parent would complain about schooling problems”, he added.

Salley also mentioned the importance of setting up English and Information Technology (IT) centres for school leavers in the city, especially for those who are financially unsound to follow courses in the private institutions.

He said most educated school leavers in the city are engaged in temporary or casual jobs, due to lack of funds money to pursue higher studies and to remedy this situation he has a plan to form a Foundation to help them.He said he will form this Foundation in addition to the existing `Azath Salley Health Care Foundation’, currently being conducted to provide medical assistance to the needy people.

Talking about the creating a better living environment in the city, Salley said that due to poverty, many people, including low income families still live in cadjan huts or shanties which are unlawfully erected.

“I have decided to build housing schemes for such families under a better environmental conditions outside the city limits,”

Salley was also very much concerned of creating a dengue-free environment and reasoned that mosquito breeding grounds are in abundance due to non removal of garbage in a proper and methodical way.

CMC officials must be deployed to surprise garbage dumping grounds and top priority must be given to clear garbage at main areas at least two times a day. So that it will help to eliminate the dengue menace.

Asked whether there will be severe competition between him and a Minister at the election campaign, Salley explained that as long as both contest under one symbol there will no competition between them and it will be upto the voters to decide on the best candidate to be voted in.

Salley also highlighted the Government’s current economic development activities and praised that President Mahinda Rajapaksa as a man with a farsighted vision.

“As had promised, he finally put an end to the thirty year old war, while also constructing a new harbour at Hambantota, expanding other harbours including Colombo and Trincomalee and the Hambantota Airport”.

On the directive of the President, Government completed the new power stations in Norochcholai, work on the continued Upper Kotmale and the projected Sampur plant.

“Now the President has plans to develop the tourism sector and set-up more industries with foreign investment so that unemployment problem could be minimised to a greater extent,”.

Salley was also critical about the country’s present electoral system and preferred the first-past-the-post System is better than the current Preferential Representation (PR) System, for in some areas there are no representation in Parliament.

He was also not too happy of the private car parks which had mushroomed in Colombo and suburbs who charge exorbitant levies for parking, which had to be stopped.

The time has come to construct at least two or three multi-storeyed vehicle parks like in foreign countries to ease this problem.