Editorial Courtesy The Island

March 16, 2018, 10:05 pm

The colony of political leeches sponging off the public continues to grow rapidly. There has been a twofold increase in the number of local government members. The country needs more professionals and skilled workers to realise its developmental goals, but it is getting burdened with more and more political lamebrains who are liabilities.

We had enough and more bad eggs in the garb of local government members previously. Among them were cattle rustlers, chain snatchers, bootleggers, drug dealers, killers and rapists. The late Ven. Maduluwawe Sobitha Thera told us about a Pradeshiya Sabhha head who had deflowered hundreds of women. God knows how many others of their ilk are among the new entrants. An already bad situation is likely to take a turn for the worse. We hope that we will be proved wrong.

The only solace, if at all, is that there will be a significant female presence in local government bodies. But, we hope and pray that there won’t be, among them, the likes of the ferocious woman who, together with her husband, a southern Provincial Councillor, mercilessly pistol-whipped a screaming private bus driver in full view of the public the other day, and the female MP who had a youth abducted in Colombo a few years ago.

There are said to be many new faces in local government institutions. But, it is doubtful that they will be different. For, most of the new entrants to politics take to corruption as if to the manner born. Ambitious and venal, they don’t scruple to defy the dictates of conscience and do whatever it takes to clear their paths in a bid to achieve their dreams. They need funds to graduate from local council bodies to the provincial councils and from there to Parliament. Therefore, they start making money from the word go and get involved in various rackets.

The increased number of local government members has led to serious problems which the government has not bargained for. The yahapalana leaders don’t think before they leap; they begin to think after leaping and then it is too late. Besides the colossal amounts of public funds they are planning to pour into a bottomless pit by way of allocations for local councillors, most of the Pradeshiya Sabhas and urban/municipal councils will face a huge space problem.

Minister of Provincial Councils and Local Government Faiszer Musthapha has sought to wish away this problem. He says not all the local government members will be present at most sittings as in Parliament, which rarely has a houseful of MPs. He has sent the wrong message to the local councillors, who will feel encouraged to stay away and collect their allowances etc. What if all the members of a council turn up? There will be a mad scramble for seats.

If local government institutions can manage their affairs with fewer members, as Minister Mustapha says, why on earth did the government make laws to provide for electing more? Aren’t the architects of the new electoral system and their political masters responsible for the resultant chaos and waste of public funds?

Meanwhile, disturbing news comes from Ambalangoda. We reported yesterday that the increase in the number of its members had prompted the Ambalangoda Urban Council to take over part of the public library of all places to expand its auditorium. Ideally, it should have been the other way around; people would have benefited if part of the UC premises had been used for expanding the library. The fate of the Ambalangoda library represents in microcosm what is happening in the country as a whole—ignorance taking precedence over knowledge. In a country, where the educated grovel before semiliterate politicians, this is something to be expected. It may be recalled that the Jaffna bibliotheca, a national treasure, was burnt down by pro-UNP goons during the 1981 development council elections.

Bibliothecae are sacred and politicians mustn’t be allowed to desecrate them. It behoves the government to prevent politicians from encroaching on libraries.