LG Polls: Gazette notice likely next week

27 October 2017 05:10 pm Views - 3509

Local Government and Provincial Councils Minister Faizer Musthapha said today he would issue the gazette notification on the amendments to The Local Authorities Elections (Amendment) Bill, which was approved by Parliament in August.

He told a news briefing yesterday that he would submit the amendments to the Cabinet on Tuesday and issue the gazette notice on the next day giving ample time to the Elections Commission to conduct the local government polls in January next year.

“I have prepared the ground work and it is now up to the EC to set the date for the match. The amendments will be gazetted making them effective from the the day on which the Act was enacted,” the minister said.

Responding to a question asked by the Daily Mirror, he said three more pradeshiya sabhas will set up in Ambagamuwa and Nuwara Eliya under the amendments and said a fresh demarcation for the six pradshiya sabhas would not be necessary because new PSs will be set up within the existing wards of Amabagamuwa and Nuwara Eliya.

"The two Pradeshiya Sabhas have over a population of 200,000 necessitating the broadbasing of local government administration," the minister said.

“For instance, the Ambagamuwa PS has 30 wards for a population of about 200,000. This PS will be divided to three Pradeshiya Sabhas with 10 wards for each Pradeshiya Sabha. The same method will be applied for the Nuwara Eliya PS,” he said.

The minister said there was an all party meeting chaired by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe last week with the political party leaders demanding that the LG polls be conducted without any further delay.

“If we wanted to we could have further delayed the LG polls based on demands to divide Samanthurai Pradeshiya Sabha in Kalmunai to four. Even the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has promised the SLMC and TNA to do it. But it needs more time and further amendments to the LG Electoral Act which will take few more years and we decided not to go ahead with this proposal," he said.

The minster said the delay in conducting LG polls was because of a controversial paragraph inserted to the Local Authorities Elections (Amendment) Bill that required to ignore the mandatory requirement of 25% women representation from a political party but this had been rectified. (Sandun A Jayasekera)