The manner in which the D.S. Senanayake
Library in Kandy got burnt remains a mystery.
Kandy
District Returns Unspent Millions to Treasury
A reliable source in the Kandy
Secretariat speaking to The Kandy News on condition of anonymity
claimed that at the end of fiscal 2006 the Kandy District
returned to the General Treasury Rs 32m out of Rs 64m that
it received from the central government for development
spending in the district. The District originally planned
to spend the Rs 64m on about 1,450 small scale development
projects each costing, on average about Rs 40,000 to Rs
50,000. Read
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President
Rajapakse Requested to Fulfil President Kumaratunga's Promise
President Chandrika
Kumaratunga during her tenure promised to give funds to
construct the planned auditorium and exhibition centre for
Kandy on top of the Kandy car park. Kandy World Heritage
City Committee at its last meeting held recently resolved
to request President Mahinda Rajapakse to fulfill the commitment
that his predecessor made. The Committee will prepare the
architectural designs and present them to the president.
The Committee also decided to have a discussion with the
Secretary to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs regarding
the proposed bill to incorporate the Kandy Heritage City
Foundation.
Central
Provincial Council to Spend Rs 425m on School Education
Chief Minster of the Central Provincial
Council (CPC) Mr. Sarath Ekanayake says that the Council
will spend Rs 425m in the current fiscal year on school
education in the province. With a student population of
about 520,000 in 1,471 schools this works out to a little
over Rs 800 per student. About one quarter of the total
education budget will come as donor assistance from the
World Bank. The balance money is mainly a grant from the
central government.
Mr. Ekanayake conceded that not all schools were equally
well endowed with facilities and qualified teachers. He
agreed that typically the urban schools were better off
than the rural schools. He said that CPC policy was to
try to narrow the gap by spending more resources on the
less privileged schools.
In this edition of The Kandy News
we report on under-expenditure in the Kandy District administration
of the central government and the Kandy municipal government.
The district is reported to have returned half (Rs32m) of
the Rs 64m that it had received from the treasury for micro
development projects in 2006. The KMC apparently had spent
less than 10% of the money that it had allocated for the
maintenance of roads and buildings. These two stories say
a lot about what is our wrong with our governance.
The amounts involved are so tiny both in absolute terms
and relative to the needs of the community one would have
expected the respective administrations to have spent all
what they got and looked for additional funds. But not our
elected and appointed officials.
The reasons are not clear for the
failure of the divisional secretariats to implement the
micro development projects. But it probably reflects gross
incompetence, inefficiency and a callous disregard for public
welfare on the part of the officials and the elected politicians
who sit above them.
The explanation of the KMC varies from official to official.
The head of engineering blames municipal policy and failure
of the municipal stores to supply the requisite material
for repair work. He also says that his effort to draw the
attention of his supervisors including the mayor, deputy
mayor and the commissioner failed to elicit any response
from these worthies.
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