Colombo government interferes with district development: TNA MP

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 July 2011, 07:41 GMT]
The Colombo government has introduced a subtle method to delay the development at district level by instructing all parliamentarians to submit their allocation under the district decentralized budget (DCB) to the SL Ministry of Economic Development for approval instead of forwarding it to district secretariats. Normally all district parliamentarians submit their allocations under the DCB to district secretariats and approved by District Development Committee (DDC). Batticaloa district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Mr.P.Ariyanethran has said that the deviation from several decades’ old practice has been adopted by the central authorities as a step to delay the district level development at a time all clamour for more devolution of powers at district level.

SL presidential sibling Basil Rajapakse, in a letter dated 30 June 2011 to all 225 parliamentarians in the island, has asked that all allocations under DCB for district developments should be forwarded to his ministry, located in Colombo, for approval.

Batticaloa district parliamentarians had submitted their annual allocation under the DCB for the first stage and approved by the Batticaloa District Development Committee (DDC) that met on February 14.

Batticaloa DDC had approved the allocation for the second stage at its meeting held in May. Several development works are now in the stage of implementation with the approval of DDC.

The latest directive from the “Economic Development Ministry” of Rajapaksa regime has created suspicion in the district level that it is a move to completely hijack all development activities that are approved by local government officials.

The officials responsible for implementation of already approved development proposals are in a quandary whether to continue the works already approved by the DDC or to wait till the approval of Economic Development Ministry is obtained.