Luxury vehicles for ministers: Treat the root cause

Friday, 17 June 2016 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Nowadays the mass media is replete with comments, observations and recommendations on luxury vehicles for ministers.

Having read some of them, I wish to draw the attention of the concerned public and the decision makers to the untouched root cause of this problem. The question is, why should Cabinet Ministers of the Central Government routinely travel to the periphery to identify and sort out problems of the people when a clear decentralised political administration mechanism comprising Provincial Councils and Pradeshiya Sabhas embracing the whole country is in place?

Under this basic pyramidal administrative structure (bottom-up approach) the onus lies on the peripheral administration to feed the Centre with the necessary data, information and recommendations to facilitate decision making by the Centre where necessary. To what extent did this happen during the recent floods and the Salawa explosion? No doubt, during such unexpected calamities one can justify ‘on the spot’ presence of the Central Government as a humanitarian exercise.

In simple terms, the root cause behind these visits of the members of the Central Government lies in the ‘Preference Vote’! Therefore, we strongly recommend the abolition of the ‘Preference Voting’ system during the Constitutional reforms process. At the same time the existing decentralised machinery should be adequately empowered to deal with peripheral issues without the direct intervention of the Centre. Incidentally, the elusive national issue of devolutionary powers too can be solved concurrently.

It is pertinent to reiterate that the members of the central Cabinet and the Parliament are fundamentally ‘law-makers’ and controllers of the National Budget and Accounts. Therefore, they should be contented with having vehicles to travel from residence to Parliament at State expense. Of course, in special circumstances they should be able to draw from a vehicle pool equipped with 4W drives.

Finally, though late in the day, the people should come to terms with the existing decentralised administration system and rely on Provincial Councils and Pradeshiya Sabhas to solve their local problems rather than going behind Cabinet ministers and members of the Central Parliament, some of whom now demand luxury vehicles to serve the people!

Bernard Fernando,

Moratuwa