The Kandy News Online Edition
February/March 2005
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EDITORIAL

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Who Runs Kandy?

Some of the news items in this issue of The Kandy News highlight yet again the fundamental question of who exactly runs Kandy. Consider for example, the flap that has arisen between Mayor Kesera Senanayake and his council on one side and property developer Thusitha Wijesena on the other. The two parties are accusing each other in public of various acts of omission and commission. The mayor says that Mr. Wijesena has disregarded KMC building regulations. The latter denies such accusations and feels deeply aggrieved that his effort to contribute something new and beneficial to the Kandy landscape is not being appreciated.

This newspaper has consistently maintained from its inception in 1994 that the Kandy City centre does not need large shopping complexes. The city simply is unable to cope with the additional traffic, garbage, pollution, sewerage and other problems that occupants of and visitors to such complexes generate. Even more important, Kandy's uniqueness as a city depends very much on the Maligawa, Kandy Lake and other buildings and institutions of religious, cultural, and historical significance and not on American style shopping complexes. But we also strongly support such modern facilities outside the city centre to help reduce the congestion in the town and also develop the suburbs. That way we can achieve a reasonable balance between antiquity and modernity.

Having said that Mr. Wijesena's new building is now a reality. That means we must make the best use of it for the benefit of the community. Mr. Wijesena can be found fault with if his construction has damaged the existing sewerage system as some people allege. If true Mr. Wijesena has an obligation to rectify it.

The construction of the skywalk is a very different issue. It is the KMC car park project that has constructed the skywalk and not Mr. Wijesena. Apparently the UDA construction engineer had disregarded the instructions of the mayor and gone ahead with the construction. We leave it to the mayor and the UDA to resolve the issue of who has authority over whom. But to us having a skywalk linking the new shopping complex and the new car park seems a perfectly sensible arrangement. The skywalk will help the users of the car park to get across to Mr. Wijesena's building and the town centre more easily. For sure it will benefit Mr. Wijesena also. But we see no harm in that because he needs a return on his investment. The KMC will also benefit from the car parking income that visitors to Mr. Wijesena's complex would generate.

But here there is one caveat. In the plan that the UDA and KMC approved for Mr. Wijesena there is provision for a car park in the building itself. The number of parking spaces in that facility was scaled down at Mr. Wijesena's request presumably because the KMC car park was also available. However, we only hope that the scaled down parking garage still remains in the Wijesena building because Kandy needs the additional space to cope with the traffic that the new complex would generate. If not it would amount to a private developer passing on to the public the full cost of providing parking space.

The issue of sewerage that the new building has raised underscores the very urgent need to select a suitable site for the Kandy sewerage project and move ahead with its construction. It is not reasonable to expect Mr. Wijesena or anybody else to invest in individual sewerage system in a city. That is a public sector responsibility. We have highlighted this issue in our supplement issued with this edition of The Kandy News. The Japanese are willing to fund the entire project. Kandy leaders have been wasting time debating total irrelevancies when this project is an absolute necessity.

Finally, both the controversy surrounding Mr. Wijesena's building as well as the non-selection of a site for the sewerage project brings up the perennial issue of who runs our cities. There was a time when mayors and municipal councils were quite powerful. But today provincial councils and especially the UDA that is not accountable to the community lord over local authorities. If we want to have a city administration that is more responsive to the needs of the community and can be held accountable to the people we need to revisit the question of power, resources, and responsibility of local government.