MR’s 70th Cabinet minister has no tasks or duties

 Wednesday, 25 December 2013 

The 70th Cabinet minister of the Mahinda Rajapaksa government does not have any tasks or duties.

The President had on Monday night gazetted the duties and functions of the Special Projects Minister S. M. Chandrasena.

The terms of the notification has not provided details about the tasks or duties assigned to Chandrasena.

It has been broadly described that the minister will be responsible for, “The formulation of special programmes and projects in relation to areas requiring priority attention based on the Mahinda Chinthana — Vision for the Future — and any other National Policies that are to be implemented by the Government”.

The Ministry has reportedly not been assigned any departments, public corporations or statutory institutions. Neither is it the implementing agency for any laws.

Other duties and functions include, vaguely, “Direction of the implementation of such policies, programmes and projects within timelines agreed with the national planning authorities and within budgeted resources, with a view to achieving relevant objectives.”

The minister has been placed in charge of, “Provision of all public services that come under the purview of the Ministry in an efficient and people friendly manner” without any definition of what these public services are.

However, the only task Chandrasena has been assigned with some specificity is, “Identification of environmental factors that contribute to the increase in the number of Kidney patients and initiating action to minimize or eliminate the impact caused by such factors.”