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Sri Lankan President Denies Privatization of Health Sector
Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has denied that the government was planning to privatize the health services which have been provided free throughout the island country.
Rumors of the privatization of electricity has also been denied by the Ministry of Power and Energy, the official Daily News reported on Monday.
The denials followed a spate of newspaper reports that the health services, education which is also free and electricity were to be privatized on the dictates of the World Bank from whom no assistance has been received for the past two years.
Commissioning a 78-million rupee (around US$91,7647) Magnetic Resonance Imaging Scanner on Sunday, the first ever in the country to be installed at Colombo National Hospital, Kumaratunga said that organized groups including trade unions were carrying out propaganda that the government is going to privatize the health sector of the country.
She said that doctors and other health workers are well qualified persons and as such there is no need for privatization. She called on every worker in the health sector to do his or her best to the war-torn country.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Energy and Power has said that newspaper reports on the privatization of energy were totally false and were based on the views of a Worker's Union. It also denied that the country has been pressurized by the World Bank or any other organization to privatize electricity.
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