Sep 08, 2019 (LBO) – Sri Lanka's Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera who is in Jaffna held a series of meetings under the enterprise Sri Lanka Exhibition.
In the morning, he met the members of war widows and small and medium entrepreneurs associations at the Jaffna Kachcheri and held a separate meeting with the Ex-combatants.
Secretary to Ministry of Finance R.H.S. Samaratunga, Senior Deputy Secretary to Treasury R Despariya and the Deputy Secretary to Treasury Atapattu and the Jaffna G.
A. N.Vedanayagam participated in this discussion.
The Minister announced that the government has decided to offer interest subsidized loans up to 1.
5 million rupees under the Enterprise SL loan scheme without obtaining collateral.
He said that there is no need for the women of the war widows association and the ex-combatants to look for two surety guarantees.
The minister emphasized that the government was mindful of the hardships faced by the northern people during the last thirty years and especially the hardships faced by the women-led families.
"Let the bygones be bygone we are here to lift your livelihood facilities by giving you interest subsidized loans" declared the minister.
The minister also said that the Cabinet of ministers have approved a proposal to pay a monthly allowance of 6,000 rupees to each family of missing persons.
He instructed the members of the missing persons to obtain the Certificate of Absence in the name of their missing persons from the office of Missing Persons OMP an office to be qualified for this payment which is to be paid from November 01.
Earlier these women and the ex-combatants brought to the notice of the minister that they faced social hardships and stigma in obtaining guarantors for them.
Jaffna GA is to arrange a two-day workshop next Friday and Saturday to help and train the prospective entrepreneurs to prepare their proposals to submit the banks.
The Northern area managers of the state banks who were present at this meeting agreed to send in there representatives too to make their proposals viable for them to obtain loans.