{"id":110337,"date":"2021-01-03T17:01:08","date_gmt":"2021-01-04T00:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=110337"},"modified":"2021-01-03T17:01:08","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T00:01:08","slug":"scrap-13a-as-a-precursor-to-the-new-constitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/01\/03\/scrap-13a-as-a-precursor-to-the-new-constitution\/","title":{"rendered":"SCRAP 13A AS A PRECURSOR TO THE NEW CONSTITUTION"},"content":{"rendered":"

By M D P DISSANAYAKE<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The\nappointment of Mr Milinda Moragoda as High Commissioner for India met with\nstrong reactions from certain sections of buddhist monks and majority\nSinhalese.  Naturally, a person who has been looking for fortunes and\npower by switching his loyalty from UNP to SLFP  and then to Pohottuwa\nought to face the reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His\ncurrent role is a Super<\/strong> role, not only  just a High Commissioner,\nbut he carried with him the status of a Cabinet Minister. At a time when\nseveral sensitive issues are under review between India and Sri Lanka and the\ninability to the President or the Prime Minister to travel to and from India\ndue to Covid, the step taken by the government appear to be logical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr\nMoragoda has been on the job for quite sometime, though we have not heard of\nany progress made by him towards addressing matters underlying the 13\nAmendment.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even\nprior to the 19 Amendment, 13A was a hotly debated  issue.  Ideally,\n13A should have been scrapped with the 19A.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

19A\nconcentrated local issues such as  presidential powers, powers of prime\nminister, speaker, commissions etc.   20 Amendment did nothing to\naddress dangers to the country from neighbouring India and its ongoing attempts\nto screw Sri Lanka, despite massive anger against the 13 Amendment  by Sri\nLankans, including protests of respected Buddhist Monks.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\nand large, the introduction of the New Constitution is a LONG SHOT<\/strong>. \nThe government will be compelled to deviate from the main economic agenda\nfor at least another 2 years, facing strong protests from the opposition, Tamil\nand Muslim community, United Nations, Human Rights Commission against the new\ndraft constitution<\/strong>.  This is destined to happen regardless of the good\nintentions of the government  to enact a constitution for the future of\nSri Lanka, safeguarding its national interests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nGovernment must give first priority to bread and butter issues.<\/strong>\nThe cost of living is unbearable.  The prices of most frequently needed\nitems, such as Rice,Milk, Coconut, Meat, Vegetables, transport, rent, utilities\nare extremely high.  The government has so far laid down realistic plans\nto improve agriculture, buy back farmers products, installed several\nrefrigerated Silos,  established marketing network to eliminate brokers\netc.   These benefits will filter into the economy and directly\nbenefit the consumers, thus gradually bringing down the cost of living and\nimproving standard of living.  The Government has applied breaks on the\nimportation of vehicles and non-essential items.  These targeted measures\nare already showing signs of slight improvement of forex reserves and\neventually will be able to meet debt-servicing requirements, without default,\nthus gradual improvement of international credit rating for Sri Lanka over the\nnext 3 years.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ngovernment cannot afford to tarnish all these hard work, because of A<\/strong> SHEET\nOF PAPER CALLED \u2018NEW CONSTITUION\u2019.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore,\nwe strongly recommend to scrap 13A, with minimum disruption to the\nimplementation of economic plans.<\/strong>  Once 13A is\nremoved, the enormous costs of maintaining the Provincial Council White\nElephant  will be saved from 2021 budgeted expenditure and forward\nestimates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nscrapping of 13A will receive overall approval of majority Sri Lankans\ninstantly.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By M D P DISSANAYAKE The appointment of Mr Milinda Moragoda as High Commissioner for India met with strong reactions from certain sections of buddhist monks and majority Sinhalese.  Naturally, a person who has been looking for fortunes and power by switching his loyalty from UNP to SLFP  and then to Pohottuwa ought to face […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-m-d-p-dissanayake"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}