Self-service with spoon in hand

It is disgusting to learn that the ‘Yahapalanaya’ concept is being prostituted to satisfy ‘misplaced enthusiasms’ of the Central Govt. MPs with an additional monthly allowance of Rs. 100,000, in order to woo the voters in their constituencies by way of attending  to their household weddings, funerals and miscellaneous needs using taxpayers’ money.

Readers will recall that as reiterated by the writer in his previous submissions, that with the advent of the decentralised  Provincial Councils and Pradeshiya Sabhas in 1987, the job-description and the role responsibilities of Central Govt. MPs should have been redesigned to make them real ‘law-makers’ or ‘legislators’ confined to the centre. If it happened with a well-intentioned political will, the country would have avoided the abominable destruction and mayhem which culminated in a bloody civil war in our motherland. 

Also, it is evident that the ‘Preference Voting system’ acted as an obstacle to implementing an effective and a productive Decentralised Political Administration system. The entire country including the politicians now agree without demur that the scandalous ‘Preference voting system’ has to be abolished with the forthcoming electoral reforms. On the other hand, since it is an optional system, can’t it be abolished by a simple amendment to the relevant laws because the attendant benefits are enormous?

In such a scenario we as citizens with the country at heart, simply cannot comprehend this self-serving excuse of a ‘Yahapalanaya’ Govt. which is in stark contravention of installing a robust ‘Good Governance’ mechanism devoid of wastage and corruption.

We still hold the hope that only a ‘Yahapalanaya’ Govt. can bring in the measures needed to institute an effective Political Machinery in Sri Lanka. Therefore, we beseech them to suspend the current moves aimed at increasing the endowments of the political fraternity and accelerate the process of electoral reforms on the lines as proposed in our repeated submissions to the press and the Public Committee on Constitutional reforms which in itself was a progressive step initiated by the Govt. So, why not citizens have a say in electoral reforms?

Bernard Fernando

Moratuwa