Former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa says that his intention was to provide houses for the low income people living in Colombo city in order to increase their quality of life.

Speaking during an event in Wellawatta, he said that the objective of the programme carried out by him during his time as the Defence Secretary was to remove the shanty homes and turn Colombo into an attractive city.

He stated that today Sri Lanka’s construction sector has completely collapsed and that directly and indirectly over 4-500,000 jobs have been lost due to this.

He said that the government shortsighted actions led to the halting of all development projects as soon as it came to power. The Colombo Port City project was stalled for 2 years and at the same time development projects across the country came to a standstill, Rajapaksa charged.

He said that the incumbent government took power without any proper plan. The former Defence Secretary said that currently there is no leader to take decisions and that nobody is taking responsibility to take decisions when a problem surfaces.

He stated that the underworld has raised its head once again and that some people are even afraid to talk about the underworld.