Time to Dismantle Sri Lanka's Provincial Councils

The Sunday Times is my favourite newspaper but its front page stories which are usually something about political scandals and war news seldom interest me. But this week's paper had a welcome change. This graphical illustration coupled with the heading, "North and East get separate flags," aroused my interest the moment I set eyes on the paper. So the newly demerged North and East provinces are to have 2 separate flags!

But in the first place what is the use of having these provincial councils? What has Sri Lanka or its people gained from having 9 provincial councils?

As far as I can see it's just a mock enactment of the Indian government system that we can very well do without. In a small country like Sri Lanka the central government can very well handle the administrative tasks currently performed by these socalled provincial councils. The councils are only draining public money. Just think of the millions of rupees and other resources Sri Lanka is wasting just for maintaining the councils and protecting its members and keeping elections for it every four or five years. Actually Sri Lankan politicians have correctly sized this thing up and made it a rest house for those who couldn't get elected to the parliament and a training college for their children and henchmen.

Knowing all this why should we keep up this farce? The president and parliament should take immediate action to dismantle the provincial councils and transfer the administration work they carried out to the government. Maybe at the moment with the conflict in north and east and the Tamil peoples concerns we can't do much about those 2 councils but certainly the other 7 councils can easily be dismantled saving Sri Lanka a lot of money and resources.

By the way, have you seen a more ridiculous flag than this new Eastern province flag? Of all things a Eagle, a Fish and a Lion are in the that flag. Eagle symbolizing Trincomalee, fish Batticaloa and lion Amparai districts respectively. In my opinion a flag must have a simple design and the average citizen must be able to draw it without needing the services of an artist.

Technorati Tags: Srilanka, LTTE, Tamils, conflict, administration, government, provincial councils, flags