Kalutara District Member of Parliament Lalith Ellawala made a proposal demanding the resignation of state ministers as more than Rs.100 million are spent per month for their maintenance.

He requested that this amount be allocated to supply medicines to the hospitals.

He expressed these views at a news briefing held in Kalutara yesterday (26) to shed light on the current situation in the country.

He said the tests carried out by the pet scanner at the Maharagama Apeksha Hospital have been stopped since last May. “Due to this, cancer patients have been severely affected. A cancer patient will spend Rs.300,000 to get this test done in a private hospital,” he said.

He also said that there are no enough medicines in the hospitals and most of the citizens are forced to skip meals. 

“When the country is in this state, the ministers travel around the world as usual. Not only that, they are going on these fun rides together with other MPs and more staff members. They are wasting taxpayers’ money. These practices should be stopped immediately.”

“The state ministers are not doing any productive work, they simply enjoy the privileges. More than Rs.100 million are spent per month to maintain the state ministers. I urge the state ministers to resign and allocate those funds to the hospitals to purchase medicines.”

“I suggest that all the state ministers resign and only 20 Cabinet Ministers be selected from the 225 MPs and the rest of the MPs be appointed to the Select Committees in order to serve the country,” he said.