The Sectoral Oversight Committee (SOC) on alleviating the impact of the economic crisis discussed the basic plans needed to save the construction sector from the impact of the economic crisis.
Discussions about this took place when the Sectoral Oversight Committee on Alleviating the Impact of the Economic Crisis met on May 24 under the chairmanship of its Chairman, MP Parliament Gamini Waleboda.
Representatives of associations representing small, medium, and large-scale construction companies in the construction sector covering all provinces of Sri Lanka, architectural associations, various engineering associations, the Construction Industry Development (CIDA) Authority, and the Chamber of Construction Industry of Sri Lanka, attended for this committee.
Due to the collapse of above sector which showed the highest growth by giving significant contributions to the Sri Lanka Gross National Product (GNP), 10 lakh jobs have been lost, related institutions have collapsed, assets have been destroyed, and professionals have left the country. It was also recognized that there were issues such as lack of institutions for training opportunities for apprentices in the construction sector.
The solution proposals for those problems were discussed continuously and a document consisting of 50 issues was presented to the committee by the participating stakeholders at the committee.
According to that, it was decided to classify the existing problems in short, medium, long-term and institutions that need to be intervened to solve them, and summarise them to be limited to 10 basic areas and present them within two weeks. After that, it was decided to meet face-to-face with the respective responsible institutions and take decisions as solutions.
Also, it was decided to focus the attention of the Ministry on the immediate lowering of the price of construction materials and to take possible measures in this regard with the intervention of the
Ministry of Trade and Commerce and to summon government institutions and industry representatives before the committee according to the priorities identified before the next meeting.
MPs Mahindananda Aluthgamage,Ranjith Bandara, Sahan Pradeep Withana,Palani Digambaram, W. H. M. Dharmasena, Wasantha Yapa Bandara and M. Rameswaran participated in this committee.
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