Dilrook Kannangara

Replacing provincial councils with District councils worsens the problems of separatism, corruption and waste. It must never be attempted. If provincial councils are bad, the system must be retracted. Replacing it with a worse system is unwise (Mahadenamutta could not have done it better in the case of palm sugar cubes).

There are 9 provincial councils each with ministers for devolved subjects, a place to meet, staff for the same functions (repeated 9 times) and provincial tax is collected by 9 different groups. If district councils are to be established, there will be 25 instead of 9! That will triple running costs doing the same thing 25 times instead of 9 and triple corruption than now.

District councils will fuel new separatism never seen before. Nuwara Eliya district council with devolved power will officially declare Malaya Nadu. All northern districts will be Tamil majority and so will be Batticaloa district. So there is nothing to be gained from there. Trincomalee and Ampara districts will spin off as Safistan and Nazarstan as declared in 2001 by the most senior Muslim MP in parliament. Puttlam district will also move towards separatism as the Christian population is significant and a definite vote winner in the district council. At the moment these moves are not possible as these districts are part and parcel of a wider provincial council system that balances out ethnic divergence.

Another reason is the utter irrelevance of the district as a devolution unit because the district is already consulted (except Vanni where election districts are different to administrative districts) for the election of parliamentarians! Why elect a second set of politicians from the same unit for the same unit? It is complete insanity and a mockery of democracy.

Further, it will be an impossible task to implement government policy as it has to be consulted with 25 different and divergent district councils! Nothing will get done.

A small island like Sri Lanka does not need any of these. A centralized unitary structure without any district or provincial council can save money, lessen the governance distance between the parliament and the people, reduce layers of corruption and the savings can go into better education and healthcare.

Instead of wasting time on pondering how to chop the island into smaller chops, it is worth the while to think of how to unify the island through unity and not division. Only unity can unite a nation; division begets division.