Accountability Issues Must Not Displace Devolution
Jehan Perera
Prior to the Commonwealth Summit there were several positive signals from both the government and TNA. It was the government that led the way by boldly deciding to conduct the Northern Provincial Council election, campaigning at the polls with enthusiasm and accepting its verdict with an appearance of good grace. However, after CHOGM there has been a decline in good news in relation to post-war reconciliation. The news is dominated by bitterness, be it the issue of the international community investigating the past or the pro-LTTE speech in Parliament by an opposition TNA parliamentarian. There are signs of a growing deterioration in relations between the government and TNA. The failure of the Northern Chief Minister C V Wigneswaran and the TNA to take part in the district development committee meetings in Jaffna and Kilinochchi bode ill for the cooperation between the central and provincial authorities.
The present structure of the provincial council system under the 13th Amendment is that power and resources are with the central government. Without the cooperation of the central authorities, there is little that the provincial authorities can do. The problem in regard to cooperation between the two parties at the district development committee meetings is that they are presently chaired by the minister of the central government in charge of northern affairs, Douglas Devananda. He has been chairing these meetings, along with the Governor of the Northern Province at which very important resource allocation decisions are made. One of the complaints of the northern people has been that these decisions reward only supporters of the government. Another complaint has been that the decisions taken have emphasized infrastructure at the expense of the immediate livelihood needs of the war-affected population.
The Northern Chief Minister has so far rejected offers to co-chair the development committee meetings with Minister Devananda who has many years of experience of handling ministerial work and has the whip hand over the government officials of the area. There is an apparent lack of confidence in an equal partnership or in joint and mutually acceptable decision making on the part of the newly elected provincial council members who belong to the opposition. This is unfortunate, as there is a danger of this type of disagreement blighting the expectations of the Northern people in regard to the newly formed provincial council’s ability to deliver concrete results to them. If the northern people feel that their expectations are not being realized within the structures of the Sri Lankan state, and that their elected representatives are powerless, this will surely serve to jeopardize the hard won peace that now exists.
