Balancing The Need For National Integration With Provincial Autonomy

By R.M.B Senanayake -November 26, 2013 

R.M.B. Senanayake

The reason for the devolution of power to provincial Councils under the 13th Amendment is to facilitate the performance of certain operating functions in the field which deal directly with the people who in the case of the Northern Provincial Council happen to belong to a different ethnic group from the majority in the nation. There is much to be said for it even in the Sinhalese dominated areas for real economic development can take place only when the people themselves take charge of the process at the village level through their empowerment. Paternalistic schemes have more often failed rather than succeeded. Economists refer to this empowerment as the mobilization of the people for development and it requires the leadership to be with the people not some bureaucratic agency. But for too long the people in the South have been too dependent on politicians that they have not seen the need for self governance and not taken responsibility for the development of their areas.  As for the North the people have always been self reliant and looked much less to the government for their development. The Co-operative movement in Jaffna was the best example of such self reliance. The plantain growers of Neervely and the red onion farmers of Tinnevelly only wanted the government to ensure an open market for their produce in Colombo where they could get remunerative prices for their produce. So if the provincial councils are to be effective they must have sufficient power and authority to exercise discretion and run affairs without having to take orders from the central government or an appendage from the Central Government like the District Minister – an institution which Sirimavo established in the 1970s but soon lost interest and gave up when she realized it was an administrative blunder undermining good governance; replacing it with a politicized administration which was far from democratic.

The President and the Ministers of the Central Government must reconcile themselves to the fact that there will be an erosion of the unlimited power they exerted hitherto through their nominees instead of through elected representatives of the people. This is no doubt hard but it is no reason to scream that the NPC is espousing separatism. There is no room for another political head as a District Minister for the elected Executive is the Chief Minister of the P.C. Popular control is ensured by placing power in one elected official- the Chief Executive and he should be the Chief Minister of the PC. It is the Chief Minister and the P.C that will reflect provincial public opinion and not the District Minister. By trying to re-centralize power through a District Minister, the government will only undermine the incentives to good administration. It is the local people who can keep an effective surveillance over the agencies of the government in the province. A central government Minister has no role in such control. Popular control of the government institutions in the Province is best ensured by having a system of law which is impartially enforced by the institutions whether they belong to the central government or the PC.

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