By Yohan Perera

Chief Government Whip and Highways Minister Johnston Fernando on Sunday vowed that the construction of the Central Expressway from Colombo to Kandy would be completed by 2024.

The Minister gave this pledge in response to a request made by Anunayake of the Malwatte Chapter Ven Dimbulkumbure Wimaladhamma Nayake Thera during a ceremony held in Kurunegala to hand over the Upapradhana Sanghanayake of the Satkorala Mahadisave and Dharmakeerthi title to Chief Incumbent of the Sri Nandarama in Thoradeniya Ven Denike Sirinivasa Ananda Thera.

The Anunayake Thera requested the minister to complete the expressway construction as it was the former’s wish to see people from Colombo to Kandy traverse easily in the expressway to worship the Dalada Maligawa. “I travelled to Matara yesterday and I could come to Kadawatha within two hours thanks to the Southern Expressway. When we travel from Colombo to Kandy it would take more than four hours. Vehicles on the Colombo-Kandy road cannot overtake another because the road is so narrow in most places. The ministers from the Central Province did nothing to solve this problem. Kandy is the second main city of this country but people cannot come there without hindrance and difficulty because the governments could not complete the expressway to Kandy. I am 81 years old now and it is my wish to see people coming to worship the Dalada Maligawa using the Central Expressway,” Wimaladhamma Nayake Thera said.
Minister Fernando then  pledged to complete the construction work of the Central Expressway by 2024. “The foundation stone for the expressway was laid by the fifth executive president Mahinda Rajapaksa in November 2014 and work started in Galagedara, Kurunegala and Dambulla. Following his election loss, the Yahapalana government came to power and stopped all the work. They cancelled the projects. The cancellations were due to political reasons because they did not want to give credit to our work. If there was no government change in 2015, the work of the Central Expressway could have been completed in 2018. After cancelling the projects, the Yahapalana started to work on the expressway in 2017 but they could not pay the contractors. When we came to power, there were arrears to contractors to the tune of Rs 36 billion. That amount was paid within 60 days after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa assumed duties. We could open the road from Mirigama to Kurunegala. There were cases against it but we opened it for  public use. We commenced the work on the section from the Pothuhera to Rambukkana under a direct contracting system. Some Opposition members recently raised baseless allegations of massive corruption running to billions of rupees in building the Central Expressway. Their target is to derail our work. I responded to those allegations and it is our hope to commence the work of the final 20 kilometres of the expressway to Kandy soon. We hope we can sign the agreements with construction companies within two weeks,” the Minister said.