A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Thursday, June 1, 2017
Severe Bottleneck In Utilising Govt. Funds For RTI Commission
Following the issuing of a Media Statement by the RTI Commission of Sri Lanka carried by Colombo Telegraph,
CT contacted the Ministry of Media yesterday regarding Statement’s
information that the Commission still had only ‘skeletal staff’ five
months after its establishment. The Ministry of Media is the nodal
agency responsible for implementing RTI in the country. Officials at the Ministry admitted that there is a bottleneck in getting the funds through.
The
Colombo Telegraph learns that though the Commission advertised for a
Director General a month ago, the salary approved by the Government for
the post was inadequate even for a middle level management post. This
has put the Commission into difficulty in recruiting a suitable person
for what will be a challenging and difficult task. Only three clerks,
one peon and one coordinating secretary serve on the Commission, all of
whom are also not sufficiently paid. Requests made to the Government to
rectify the situation have fallen on deaf ears.
The
burden of coping with more than three hundred and fifty appeals and
requests for assistance coming in has therefore been passed to
Commission members, who are themselves not resourced properly. CT
understands that the forthcoming website of the Commission is only
coming into being because it is funded by the World Bank due to the
interventions of Commission members.
Chrissy
Abeysekera, a lawyer and RTI activist working voluntarily with the
London based Sri Lanka Media Law Reform Initiative has been documenting
the RTI process. She pointed to this situation being ‘unprecedented’ in
the context of an internationally hailed RTI law, which the Government
has been quick to capitalize on for its own advantage while not
providing for a smooth transition of funds to the RTI Commission.
Are these bottlenecks deliberate or part of the normal Government bureaucracy?’ she questioned.
‘Recently
I saw an interviews by a social media RTI activist in a Sinhala online
journal where he unquestioningly accepts the claims by the Director
General of Information Ranga Kalansooriya some months ago that the Government has ‘approved’ a sum of Rs 76 million for the RTI Commission.’ she said.
Abeysekera
pointed out that this is part of an active propaganda effort in posting
messages on social media and giving online interviews to hide the truth
from the public and cover up the Government’s actions due to juicy
foreign trips and trainer positions as ‘RTI experts’ being obtained and
channeled through Kalansooriya.
‘People in the know are well aware as to whom I am referring to’ she said.
‘We
have been tracing the way in which the third best RTI law in the world
came into being. This serves as a good lesson not only for other efforts
in Sri Lanka but also elsewhere’, she pointed out. ‘What
we have discovered is that none of these ‘experts’ actually contributed
to the RTI process in Sri Lanka except taking part in trainings from
2015, even though they marketed themselves as having had a key role to
play and put forward project proposals by NGOs claiming money for the
work.’ she said.
Kalansooriya’s
claim came in the context of a media storm being raised earlier this
year that the Commission was being deliberately starved of funds to
cripple its functioning. Kalansooriya claimed on twitter that the
Government had in fact released the money and thanked the media for
raising the issues. These claims were questioned.
Kalansooriya
who is now fighting to keep his job as DG, Information Department
amidst the ministry shake-up after the Ministry changed hands, has also
tried to drive a new media regulatory process. This proposed law tries
to force journalists to give up their sources of information through a
body which they maintain, would be ‘independent’ and ‘excellent’,
similar to the RTI Commission.
Abeysekera
pointed out that this was a good propaganda tactic; ‘praise the
Commission but do not give it enough money’ she said.