By Saman Indrajith

The New constitution to be framed should abolish the provincial councils without thinking of holding elections to them, SLPP MP Genvindu Cumaratunga told parliament yesterday.

Participating in a debate at the time of adjournment of the House on the Financial Commission, the MP said that the Commission had been introduced under the 13th Amendment resultant from the 1987 Indo-Lanka Peace Accord that had been forced on Sri Lanka by India. “The Financial Commission’s objective is to allocate funds for the provincial councils. In 2015, the amount of funds allocated for the provincial councils was Rs 198.1 billion. In 2016 it was Rs 195.1 billion. As a percentage of national expenditure in 2015 it was 8.65 per cent. In 2016 it was 8.36 percent. That means the average percentage of the allocation for the provincial councils was 8.5. The question is whether it is fair to waste public funds on the PCs at a time when people are concerned about the amount of funds spent on maintaining elected representatives. We have an education minister in this assembly and nine other education ministers in the provinces. What is their use? Why should we spend public funds to maintain those so-called public representatives? Why should we spend public funds to maintain 437 other public representatives while the entire nation is represented here in this House by 225 members?”

MP Cumaratunga said that the UNP, TNA and the SLMC which had been known for championing the cause of devolution of powers had got together to prevent the elections to the Provincial Councils under the previous government. “It is a known fact that those three parties worked together during that time. They made the PCs dysfunctional by not holding elections thereto. We demand that the new Constitution be brought instead of holding the PC polls. The new Constitution should abolish the provincial council system. There is no need for reviving now defunct PCs.”

MP Cumaratunga said President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had pointed out that the government had been able to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic successfully without any backing from the PCs. Had there been PCs in existence we would not have been able to do so. We know that the operation of counter-pandemic measures from the government alone could solve that problem. “Had there been PCs, we would have witnessed power struggles between the government and the PCs.”

MP Cumaratunga said that people had approved the government’s one-country-one-law policy. “The existence of PCs as subordinate legislatures making laws different from parliament is against that mandate. Therefore, the time has come to abolish the PCs.”