National Peace Council proposes more devolution to provincial councils

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s system of devolved power provided by the Provincial Councils should be enhanced and activated to create a more participatory government, a statement by the National Peace Council (NPC) said.

The NPC finding is timely as a new debate as to whether the country needs the Provincial Councils has emerged during and soon after the recent elections, Economy Next reported.

Elections to the PCs have been postponed time and time again and currently, the terms of all of them have expired.

The NPC which has a wide network of civil society organizations it works with had consulted with a number of these bodies across the country to prepare submissions for the new constitution that the current government says it is drafting.

Although the government rushed through the 20th Amendment to the country’s basic law just months after it won a two-thirds majority in this year’s Parliamentary General elections removing key provisions that empowered the legislature, it is going through the process of drafting an entirely new constitution.

Submissions from the public have been called for by the committee entrusted with the task.

The NPC said that the organizations it consulted had said that from “the United States to Europe to India, devolution has been the answer to many developed and developing nations solving their problems.”

A new constitution offers the possibility of developing a framework of governance that could address the conflicts between the ethnic and religious communities that have marred the post-independence progress of Sri Lanka, the NPC said.