Five years ago the country was full of promise. I believe that promise could easily have been fulfilled, had government not fallen prey to a few rent seekers. What happened, in particular in the last couple of years, was tragic, and I believe a full study of the triumph and the tragedy of President Mahinda Rajapaksa would be immensely illuminating. ...
Democracy developed apace in Britain in the 19th century, and the Ceylonese began to ask for similar rights for themselves. By the beginning of the 20th century, it was impossible for the British government to refuse such demands. The Liberal Party had returned to office in 1906 and many years, on a reform platform that included reducing the power of ...
What I think of as the brilliant idea of the Secretary of the Ministry of Child Development and Women’s Affairs to set up Women and Children’s Units in Divisional Secretariats did have a precedent in what were termed Social Care Centres. These were set up in tsunami affected areas to coordinate the work of all agencies concerned with social service. ...
Presentation by Prof Rajiva Wijesinha MP, Leader – Liberal Party of Sri Lanka And Presidential Adviser on Reconciliation to the President, Sri Lanka On ‘The Global War on Terror: How Do the Liberals Respond?’ At the Seminar on “Liberalism: It’s All About Freedom” Organized by the Civic Will Green Party of Mongolia Ulaanbaatar, May 24th 2012 Let me first express ...
Minister Mangala Samaraweera’s defence of his taking a young man with him to New York was entertaining, but it was also very sad. Instead of concentrating on the problem of public funds being spent on private predilections, he engaged in a defence of what he evidently thought was a slur, if not on his character, on that of the young ...
I used to have very good relations with the Japanese embassy in the period between 2007 and 2014. This began with my appreciation of their support for Sri Lanka during the war period, as explained in the first of the articles about my time at the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process, the series that appears in this newspaper ...
There is a very strange game being played out in Geneva, the implications of which decision makers in Colombo have not understood – or else, having understood, they simply do not care. Though the motivations of those attacking us vary, their aim is clear, namely to undermine national sovereignty. The mandarins, or perhaps I should say the rickshaw pullers, in ...
What I think of as the brilliant idea of the Secretary of the Ministry of Child Development and Women’s Affairs to set up Women and Children’s Units in Divisional Secretariats did have a precedent in what were termed Social Care Centres. These were set up in tsunami affected areas to coordinate the work of all agencies concerned with social service. ...
Chapter 6 of Political Principles and their Practice in Sri Lanka dealt with the introduction of Universal Franchise to Sri Lanka, and the beginning of Representative Government. This happened through the Donoughmore Constitution, which gave Sri Lankans a much greater say in government than in any other colony which was not composed largely of European settlers. The main grievance of ...
In this last lap as it were of my discussion of what should have been comprehensive Reform Agenda, I thought it would be instructive to lay down the Reforms that were pledged in the manifesto on which the President won the election, and to explain how they have been ignored. Amongst these perhaps the most significant was the pledge about ...
A few months back, at the suggestion of the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies, we arranged consultations on Human Rights at the Reconciliation Office. The invitees were a number of governmental and non-governmental agencies that had significant roles or interests, and the discussions proved extremely productive. This preparation was helpful when the Minister in charge of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on the ...
Having looked at one example of rent seeking, in an unusual format, in the field of education, I came across another that was also quite illuminating about the way in which we allow ourselves to be exploited. This, also startling, case of abuse came to my notice when I went through the documents sent by the National Lotteries Board, after ...
By giving parties the right to expel members from Parliament, Jayewardene destroyed an important principle of parliamentary democracy—the independence of members of parliament. The main justification of parliament is that it acts as a check on the executive. In the British system members of the ruling party generally support the government, but they are free to criticise and question it. ...
The present government has made a complete hash of the Cabinet. Whereas we talked in terms of a Cabinet based on rational principles, we seem to have adopted the rag-bag approach instead, with ludicrous combinations such as Home Affairs and Fisheries (whereas District and Divisional Secretariats should obviously have been part of Public Administration) or Minister of Policy Planning, Economic ...
April 10th 2015 The Secretary General Parliament Dear Secretary General Further to the amendments I have already proposed to the draft 19th amendment to the Constitution as it was gazetted, I wish to also propose the following amendments at the Committee State Delete Sections 95 to 99 of the Constitution and replace with 95 (i) Within one week of Sections ...
Good Governance demands Accountability, but there is little understanding of the various dimensions of this concept. The first and most obvious one is Financial Accountability, and one vital commitment of this government is to strengthen audit mechanisms. But formal requirements alone are not sufficient. We must strengthen the powers of those agencies that can hold functionaries accountable on the ...
In the last few articles in this series, I intend to look at essential aspects of government that are not normally considered under the term Good Governance. That is generally associated with form, namely accountability and transparency and the entrenchment of procedures that prevent arbitrary and inequitable decisions. But the substance of government is also vital, and we must recognize ...
Tarzie Vittachi’s ‘Island in the Sun’ is perhaps the best piece of political satire written in this country. It has graphic desctiptions of the politicians of the nineties, with Sir John Kotelawala for instance being the Rogue Elephant and Dudley Senanayake the Tired Tortoise. J R Jayewardene was the Seethala Kotiya, a description that perhaps would not fit his nephew, ...
Perhaps the most controversial subject we have to deal with in trying to restore confidence in government is that of the violence and extra-judicial killings that have taken place. Unfortunately dealing with this is complicated by the fact that there are in fact three different issues involved. Two of them have to do with the conflict period. The third issue ...
I have refrained thus far from getting involved in the debate over the Geneva Resolution for a number of reasons. One is a commitment to finalize a few books, and in particular an account of what Sri Lanka did right, in winning the war, and then did wrong in losing the peace. Secondly, I had long felt that the last ...
