Colombo Mayor in a quagmire !

by Deepal Warnakulasuriya

Colombo is the commercial and financial capital of the country covering a land area of 37.31 sq. kms. The Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) is the largest local Authority in the country and one of the oldest in the Asian region.

The CMC with 53 elected councillors, a number of departments and committees is mainly responsible for the provision of services, public health and curative services, solid waste management, maintenance of roads, street lighting, water and drainage, and veterinary services.

The CMC was established on January 12, 1866 and John Macdowell from the Madras Civil Service was the first to hold office. At the time of the establishment the Council population was 80,000 and by today official population has increased to 377,396. But with the floating population it must be higher than the Census Department statistics.

From 1937 up to last year all the 23 Mayors have taken the responsibility to govern and develop the Colombo municipal area. It is significant that almost all the Mayors had represented the United National Party.

They were V. A. Sugathadasa, M. H. Mohamed, Jabir A. Cader, Vincent Perera, Sirisena Cooray, A. H. M. Fowzie, Ratnasiri Rajapakse, K. Ganeshalingam and Karu Jayasuriya are on that list. The most significant fact is most of them later had crossed over from the UNP.

Time has come for the people to Judge whether former Mayors had done their duty towards the people who voted for them and sent them into their positions. Have they tried to work fulfilling the aspirations of the people as it says in the CMC vision "Colombo being a model city in Asia, a caring organisation looking after interests of citizens and users with an efficient quality service for creation of safe, healthy and meaningful lifestyle.

At present, the Mayor of the CMC is Mohamed U. Imithiyas and it was an accidental and unexpected victory. The UNP which was unable to fill the nomination papers duly was ousted from the voting fray and sought the assistance from one independent group on an agreement. After the election, the agreement between the UNP and the independent group did not work and Imithiyas who gave his name to the list just because one of his relatives told him to do so was elected as the Mayor.

Imithiyas who was visible only to place his signature on the nomination papers and had never expected to enter politics. He knew nothing about the MC and it was not his business to think and plan about the MC's governance or development plans.

Now, the latest is a charge sheet which has been issued against the Mayor and the Council, by the Western Province Chief Minister Reginald Cooray. Chief Minister had brought seven allegations with a deadline of two weeks time frame to reply from May 15.

He has vowed to take action if the Mayor fails to answer these before the deadline. Any way, Mayor Imithiyas had forwarded his reply to the charge sheet last Friday.

The several allegations are the violation of the tender procedure in waste and garbage management in the MC, purchasing roofing sheets breaching the tender board decisions, spending MC's (public) money on a private vehicle park and distributing some sewing machines. Now it is again the Chief Minister's turn to decide whether the replies are credible enough to prevent the suspension of the MC.

In the Mayor's 15 pages reply sheet (with two attachments) he has proved that the MC is also famous for typing errors. Replying to the fourth allegation of the CM he had said that the "Sewing machines to given to councillors" should be changed as "sewing machines to be distributed among low income family women under the direction of the councillors".

Same answer is given for sixth and seventh allegations (Roofing sheets and galvanised sheets) by the Mayor.

([email protected])