Broad-Base 100 Days Programme

By Somapala Gunadheera –

Somapala Gunadheera

It is heartening to see the new Government making an honest attempt to implement the Hundred Days Programme, (HDP), they highlighted as an election promise. However honest their intention may be, the implementation appears to be lagging behind day by day and caustic remarks on the delays are on the increase. It is manifestly unfair to hold the new-comers down to the exact dates indicated. There should be no quarrel, if the trend of implementation shows an honest effort to keep to the promises.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the leader of the JVP, has made a useful distinction between ‘schedule’ and ‘time frame’ as applied to the HDP

Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the leader of the JVP, has made a useful distinction between ‘schedule’ and ‘time frame’ as applied to the HDP. He says it is pointless haggling about the dates in the schedule. What matters is whether the implementation follows a time frame. By and large, the present Government has made seven promises. They are;

1. Reducing the cost of living and increasing income,

2. Introducing delayed people-friendly legislation,

3. Establishing communal amity

4. Investigating and penalizing bribery and corruption

5. Repealing the 18th Amendment of the Constitution with legislation to establish strengthened independent institutions, through a 19th Amendment to the Constitution

6. Replacing the current Preference Vote system with an Mixed Electoral System

7. Abolishing the authoritarian executive presidential system and replacing it with an executive of Cabinet of Ministers

Cost of living and income

The supplementary budget passed on the due date has increased salaries in the public sector and started initiatives to spread its fallout to the private sector. Prices of commodities used by common people have been reduced. However, wisecracks on the changes made and their adequacy are common, as may be expected, from the Opposition, but there appears to be reasonable satisfaction with the relief already given.

Prompt attention has been paid to the promulgation of long delayed essential legislation. The National Pharmaceutical Policy Bill and the Witness Protection Bill are being rushed through Parliament. Eighty percent warning on tobacco packaging has become a reality at long last. A visible effort is being made to give the minorities their due place in society. Civilian Governors have been appointed to the North and the West, ending a minority demand for years, within a few weeks of coming to power. A start has been made on reducing land occupied by the army in the North. Authorities responsible for national reconciliation have already started a dialogue with the minorities. Surprisingly, politicians in the North who were placidly tolerating obvious discrimination for years, have become aggressive all of a sudden, thereby making the task of nation building more arduous and forgetting it needs two hands to clap.Read More