CAC further politicises development activities with an eye on election

By Rathindra Kuruwita

The newly-established Community Advisory Committees (CAC), on a directive of President Ranil Wickremesinghe to monitor development projects and programmes implemented in rural areas, is aimed at further politicising development activities at the grassroots, says Executive Director of the Institute of Democratic Reforms and Electoral Studies (IRES) Manjula Gajanayake.

Gajanayake said that the CAC would oversee the “Urumaya” Land Ownership Programme, the Urban Home Ownership Programme, the “Kandukara Dasakaya” Development Programme, the Agriculture Modernisation Programme and the Rice Distribution Programme.

“The government has been carrying out various projects at the grassroots and obviously these are aimed at the coming presidential election. However, government affiliated politicians feel that these are mostly implemented by officials who are not too keen on promoting the President. In fact, we saw a former Local Council member telling the President, at a public event, that they too need to have an official role in these initiatives to adequately boost the President,” he said.

The IRES Executive Director added that high levels of politicisation was one of the main reasons why grassroots development programmes had failed in the last five decades. It was likely that hundreds of billions of rupees had been wasted with little results to show, he said.

“The government appoints individuals who are only interested in bribing voters. Looking at how members to the CAC are appointed shows that this is no different than dozens of similar initiatives in the past.”

Gajanayake said that the key decisions of the CAC would be taken by the Provincial Governors appointed by the President. In recent months, the President had been establishing a number of structures that ran parallel to many existing institutions and the CAC was the latest, he said.

“The CAC is appointed for a year. The appointments are made by the Governor. Prior consent of the Prime Minister is necessary regarding the nominations to the CAC,” he said.

Gajanayake added that by involving the Prime Minister, who represented the SLPP, the President had also given SLPP a chance to bribe people ahead of election. Each CAC has been given 10 million rupees.

“Was the money allocated from the Budget last year? The answer is no. The government says it has no money for elections. But it has money to give over 3.4 billion rupees to the CAC. This institution also restricts the little power divisional secretaries had. The people must be told where the government got hold of the money,” Gajanayake said.