Cabinet spokesman and Media Minister Dullas Alahapperuma expressed his displeasure on behalf of the government over the scare created with LP gas related explosion and said the gas issue would be resolved within the next 48 hours.
He stated that he expects the relevant institutions, the Ministries in charge of the subject as well as all relevant parties to summon the President to look into the matter and announce a decision.
He was responding to a question raised by a journalist at a cabinet decision briefing today.
“There have been no reports of an explosion in this gas tank, but there have been reports of related explosions. We have to admit that there is an abnormality in the statistics. He hopes to make such a statement this morning as well.
The Minister of State had to explain that there have been 233 such explosions from 2015 to this year. Then the number should be between 35 and 40 per year. Then it could be three or four a month. But in some years no such incidents have been reported. There are three or four such years. That’s why I said there’s an unnaturalness here.
The first thing is that this is an unnatural situation. The second thing is that there was no gas tank explosion anywhere. The third point is that there was no regulatory body within the state institutions to regulate this.
Minister of State Lasantha Alagiyawanna has clearly stated that the Analyst has some authority to measure the pressure here. They have that understanding but for the composition here, I’m not technically someone who has subject knowledge about this, there was no such regulatory body to look into this. As such, the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation has provided information to the University of Moratuwa and investigations are underway. The fact that the incidents that took place in 12 places in connection with other such explosions are still being reported today.
We hope that all these parties will come together and the President will announce a decision today or tomorrow to look into this matter expeditiously.
People are terrified and we are worried about that. We as a government should have a responsibility. This is our responsibility, not the primary infantile expression. We as a government have entered into this regulation. We should not only be sad but also ashamed, it would be beneficial to take action to expedite this regulatory action sooner rather than later. We expect a good solution within the next 48 hours. “
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