Minister of Finance Mangala Samaraweera who is in Jaffna overseeing the implementation of entrepreneurship loan scheme to young people in the northern province today held series of meetings with war-affected people to help them to make use of the opportunity under the enterprise Sri Lanka Exhibition to obtain loans.

In the morning he met the members of the War widows and the Small and Medium Entrepreneurs associations at the Jaffna Kachcheri.

He also held a separate meeting with the Ex-combatants at the Jaffna Kachcheri. 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 were also associated with the minister at this discussion.

The Minister announced at this meeting 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. So 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 has approved a proposal to pay a monthly allowance of Rs 6000 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.

On the instruction of the Minister Mangala Samaraweera, Jaffna GA is to arrange a two-day workshop on coming Friday and Saturday to help and train the prospective entrepreneurs to prepare their proposals to submit to the banks. The Northern area managers of the State banks, who were present at this meeting, agreed to send in their representatives to make their proposals viable for them to obtain loans.