Back stabbing within his own party, CBK keeps to time

During his time as Mayor of Colombo, Karu Jyasuriya had refused to avail himself of benefits and entitlements, opting to spend his own funds for necessary expenditure. These included the monthly allowance, refreshment allowance and fuel allowance allocated to the Mayor. Instead, he ensured that all allocated allowances were routed to the Mayor’s Fund and were utilized for the betterment of the City and its residents.

Karu even declined to accept the official vehicle provided by the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) and instead used his own vehicle for official Mayoral work. But this did not dissuade opposition members of the CMC from questioning Karu at every council meeting demanding to know details of CMC funds spent by his administration. “What is your monthly fuel allowance?” or “How much did you spend on fuel last month?” were common questions thrown at him.

These questions and jibes by the opposition often made it to the headlines of the government-run ‘Lake House’ newspapers the very next day. The headlines featured were along the lines of “Council member questions Colombo’s Mayor on his fuel allowance…!!” or “CMC members express suspicion that Mayor has secretly increased refreshment allowance in the past months…!!”

According to Karu, despite replying to these unfounded allegations, the rejoinders were not featured prominently in print. “More often than not they were completely ignored by the newspapers…” he says. To his dismay, Karu was to later find out that certain politicians of his own party were behind the acts of these opposition council members. Feeling insecure and threatened by Karu’s rising popularity among the people, these United National Party (UNP) politicians had allegedly bribed several opposition councilors to pose embarrassing questions to the UNP Mayor.

“I heard that sums up to five thousand rupees were paid to ask certain questions. The same tactic was being used to publish them in government-owned Lake House” Karu alleges. He believes this was yet another unfortunate result of the competitive preferential voting system in the country that often pits party colleagues against each other.

But an unruffled Karu had merely continued with his work. In addition to the special committee consisting of councilors, Karu also took steps to form an advisory committee of professionals from various sectors to provide necessary advice and guidance to the administration of the CMC.
According to Karu, these professionals were unpaid and provided their services voluntarily. “Several experts and professionals were also called in to analyze and provide feedback on the CMC and its functions in the hope of receiving constructive criticism…” Karu says.

Housing for the underprivileged in Colombo was also an issue during Karu’s time as mayor. Several families living in Colombo city limits at the time had sought shelter in dilapidated shipping containers due to the lack of adequate housing. As Mayor, Karu had taken steps to construct new houses in Slave Island for these families, allowing them to leave their unsafe shelters behind and move into better housing provided by the city.

At that time Crow Island in Mattakkuliya was notorious as a paradise for criminals such as thieves, bandits and rapists. Shockingly, in just a short period several women had been raped and killed in the area. The gruesome incidents created a sense of fear among people. As Karu recalls, many had expressed their reluctance to travel through the area even during the daytime. Hearing these reports as Mayor, a concerned Karu visited Crow Island. What he saw was that the area was indeed enveloped in a dark and sinister feeling. Determined to change this image Karu directed the CMC to give Crow Island a much-needed face-lift. The result was a much more pleasant and welcoming Crow Island devoid of criminal activities.
According to Karu, by this time many of the roundabouts in Colombo were in a state of neglect. Coming up with an ingenious plan he decided to allow private companies in the area to maintain these roundabouts. “They were expected to beautify and maintain the roundabout allocated to them. The CMC did not pay them but instead, they were allowed to put up promotional signs saying they were maintaining the roundabout. This method was later adopted by many other municipalities of towns across Sri Lanka.

It was also Karu who first introduced high pressure water guns to rid the city of the poster menace. At the time Colombo’s walls and public spaces were covered with promotional posters of politicians, and tuition teachers as well as films and teledramas creating an unsightly scene. Several gangs of thugs had begun putting up these posters for a fee, and fights among them also became a common occurrence.

Karu says as a solution he decided to put up CMC sponsored notice boards on major roads and streets in Colombo for posters and other promotional material to be displayed. Next, he took steps to ban posters on walls and in any other public spaces. But as some groups continued to ignore the CMC’s directives, Karu refusing to back down introduced high pressure water guns dubbed ‘Poster Killers’ by the public to remove any material displayed on any surfaces not allowed by the CMC. Every day after midnight CMC workers would set out to remove posters in the city as directed by the mayor. According to Karu, the poster wars were significantly reduced thereafter.

During his time, Karu says the CMC funded the development and restoration of various places of worship located within the city of Colombo. Funds were provided to all religions with Karu ensuring no particular religion was favoured. One place of worship that benefited through this program was the Thai Temple located in Mattakkuliya, Colombo which was in a state of disrepair at the time.

As Mayor, Karu had also taken steps to renovate the popular Viharamahadevi open-air theatre to provide more space and facilities to hold various types of shows. The Old Town Hall building in Pettah and the Town Hall theatre were other venues that were renovated and modernized during his tenure.

Seeking to further improve facilities available to the public, Karu also observed that many public children’s parks dotting the city of Colombo were in a dilapidated state. He ordered them to be renovated and more facilities added so that children could play safely. The city’s public swimming pool also got a much needed face lift during this time.

According to Karu, the assessment of private properties to levy municipal rates on them, which was a key income stream of the CMC, was in total disarray at the time. “It was discovered that assessment taxes had not been collected for over a decade from many luxury houses in the affluent Cinnamon Gardens area in Colombo while others had only been taxed meagre amounts…” Karu recalls. He says this was a failure on the part of his predecessors who had failed to launch a proper investigation or assessment of the situation.

“The CMC was found to have lost millions of rupees in revenue as a result. I ensured the situation was rectified through the advisory committees and the income of the CMC shot up thereafter…” he says.

Meanwhile, in a bid to further end all corrupt practices and to address any shortcomings of the CMC, Karu decided to introduce a 24-hour investigation unit. The public could inform the newly formed unit of any issues at any time of the day by calling on the hotline introduced.

But Karu was also keen on giving Colombo’s residents the opportunity to approach him directly. To this end, he introduced the phone number 077 771 2345 on which the public could call him directly with any queries or issues faced by them. Karu says he would even receive calls in the middle of the night but took steps to provide immediate solutions to the many problems related to him by Colombo’s citizenry.

One day as Karu was having lunch, he received a call from Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike. “Karu the street lights in front of my house on Rosmead Place have not been switched off for three days. I saw your phone number in the newspaper and decided to call as I could not stand this waste any longer… she had said. Following the short conversation, Karu called the Municipal Engineer and instructed him to immediately rectify the issue.

While heads of organizations often prefer to hold on to all administrative powers, Karu during his 16-month tenure as Mayor of Colombo attempted to maintain a distribution of his powers instead. “I granted all necessary powers to my deputy Omar Kamil. Meanwhile, the required powers to take necessary action were also granted to the advisory committees headed by Municipal councilors, he recalls.

According to Karu, he was inspired to do so through his own personal experience. “I understood that people tend to work better when they are given the freedom and necessary powers to do so…” he says.
Karu notes therefore he ensured all Municipal Councilors in spite of their political party affiliations received the required administrative powers. “For example, though the UNP held the power of the CMC, I even appointed councilors from the opposition to head numerous standing committees in an attempt to distribute these powers…” Karu says.

It was during his time as Mayor of Colombo that it was announced Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne would visit Sri Lanka to attend the country’s 50th Independence celebrations. Karu engaged in conversation with Prince Charles during this visit and as Mayor of Colombo, was tasked with presenting the ‘Golden Key to the City’ to this Royal visitor.

To discuss the necessary arrangements, the then President, Chandrika Kumaratunga summoned Karu to ‘Temple Trees’ one morning. But with an already scheduled meeting at 10:30 a.m. with the West German ambassador, Karu found himself in an unexpected dilemma. This was because President Kumaratunga was notorious for her lack of punctuality. She would often arrive fashionably late even to official government engagements. Years later Kumaratunga would say this was because she would only move on to a task after finishing the one at hand, often making her late for the next appointment.

“Madam President, I will attend the discussion at 9 a.m. But if you get late I will have to leave as I must keep an already scheduled appointment for 10.30 a.m. with the West German ambassador…” Karu had responded. On the day Karu arrived at Temple Trees several minutes ahead of the 9 a.m. meeting only to be informed that the President was yet to arrive. “I will wait for thirty minutes…” Karu had thought to himself. But to everyone’s surprise, Kumaratunga had hurried in just two minutes past 9 a.m. saying “Karu I am sorry for the delay..!”

“The president was known to get late for hours on end. Some high-level diplomatic visitors were even forced to leave without having met her due to her tardiness. On the day though she was only delayed by two minutes and I was quite surprised that she apologized politely for having kept me waiting for that short time…” Karu says.

While the discussion that followed was cordial, President Kumaratunga had even humbly apologized for the false allegations she had leveled against him during the previous local council election.
During his 16-month tenure as the Mayor of Colombo, Karu believes he was able to serve the people of Colombo and also increase the revenue of the CMC due to his policy of delegating the administrative responsibilities of the Council to work as a team. Karu had only given leadership when necessary and worked towards improving the management of the CMC.

A prime example of this is the ’99 Day Rapid Development Program’ initiated by him. Karu says the program proved more successful than he had initially expected due to the time and effort put in by all staff of the CMC. “We worked on all holidays and weekends during this program…” Karu recalls. Even though senior staffers of the CMC are not entitled to overtime pay and therefore could not be forced to work on holidays, Karu says certain female engineers had chosen to report to work even on holidays during this program despite being pregnant at the time.

Moved by their commitment and dedication Karu was able to later provide these employees with a oneoff allowance for the work carried out during holidays after obtaining permission from the Chief Minister of the Province and the Attorney General after getting a motion passed at a CMC meeting.
Karu recalls the program and the relevant development activities carried out had so impressed the West German Friedrich Naumann Foundation that it led to the program getting international attention.

Perhaps due to his background, Karu had always attempted to carry out many development programs with the assistance of the private sector. This was made easy due to the image he had built over the years as a successful entrepreneur in the private sector. Towards the end of his tenure, Karu had sought to commence a recycling project in the town of Meepe which was to be funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The results of the feasibility study confirmed the project would pose no harm or threat to the environment.

However, politicians of the People’s Alliance representing the areas of Avissawella, Homagama and Maharagama not only voiced their strong opposition to the proposed project but also propagated a negative view about it among residents of the area. As a part of this campaign, all politicians of the Colombo district representing all political parties hoping to contest the then upcoming provincial council elections were called to make a public pledge promising to not allow its implementation if elected. Among those who chose to take this pledge were all the provincial council hopefuls of the UNP. According to Karu, possible environmental impacts of the project had been exaggerated to obtain this result. Karu’s opposition was to no avail. Faced with stiff public opinion from residents of Meepe, the ADB decided to withdraw from the project and commit the funds elsewhere in the region.

At the time a well-known care home for senior citizens in Borella was managed by the CMC. While this institution was home to many elderly women and men, it was no secret that the place was riddled with corruption. Having ordered an investigation into these allegations, Karu discovered that many of them were true. “Some were even profiting off the meals and food items intended for the elderly living in the care home. Even though it was required that healthy and nutritious meals be provided to the residents more often than not the meals were paltry and far from nutritious…” Karu recalls.

He not only put a stop to the corrupt practices, but was also able to obtain the support of various private businesses, the Lions Club and the Rotary Club to organize volunteer programs at the care home. Karu was also able to move the care home to a better fully equipped facility in the town of Battaramulla during his tenure as mayor.

But even as Karu implemented various new plans while working towards the betterment of Colombo’s citizenry, this resulted in a number of UNP stalwarts feeling insecure and threatened by him. Many thought Karu would overshadow them and become more popular among the people. This prompted them to launch a secret campaign against their own colleague. According to Karu, it was this campaign against him that eventually forced him to shift his political career from Colombo to the Gampaha district.

(Excerpted from the biography of Karu Jayasuriya by Nihal Jagathchandra)