We Need Good Mechanisms Rather Than ‘Good People’

President Ranil Wickremesinghe had claimed during his Northern Province tour over the weekend there are ample powers awarded to provincial councils to establish a robust local economy, under the provisions of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. He urged provinces to utilize the powers granted by the 13th Amendment for economic development, asserting that devolution should not merely be a political concept but an economic reality.
This claim seems not to go well with the stand taken by the Tamil leaders who have been demanding more powers to the provincial councils under a more comprehensive power sharing scheme as a lasting solution to the ethnic problem. They might view this as an attempt to circumvent those demands and akin to the stand held by former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. 
Rajapaksa within days after he assumed office stated during a meeting with newspaper editors that he would replace devolution with development as a solution to the problems of the Tamil people in the Northern and Eastern Provinces. He further said that he did not believe in devolution as a solution to the Tamil people’s problems.
And also, President Wickremesinghe’s statement comes against the backdrop of his recent statement during a meeting with Tamil leaders that the 13th Amendment would be fully implemented within a year after the next Parliamentary election. 

Nevertheless, assertion that devolution should not merely be a political concept but an economic reality is theoretically perfect and it is very appropriate to be highlighted at an event held in the north since many Tamil leaders seem not to have realized it. During the only time a provincial council – the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) - was under their purview they used it as a tool to promote their political slogans rather than attempting to resolve the economic issues in the war ravaged region. 
The NPC throughout the tenure under Chief Minister, C.V. Wigneswaran was accused of being over-politicized. Media reports during the tail end of his term said that the NPC had adopted 415 resolutions during its five year tenure, on average seven resolutions per day it had convened, but many resolutions adopted had been related to issues which mostly did not come within the purview of the NPC. 

Some of the resolutions such as the one claiming that Tamil genocide had occurred during the war between the armed forces and the LTTE, and the one calling to establish a federal form of government may come within the purview of the council and be legally valid, but it would have been more appropriate for the TNA to adopt it within the party while the NPC carried out the development activities of the region. 
On the other hand, the PC system is in fact flawed in a way, as the Centre has more clout in interfering in the mechanism. Wigneswaran as the Chief Minister was not able to transfer the Chief Secretary of his province who he accused of not cooperating for a long time. And the provincial leaders are not being consulted when a Governor is appointed by the President. 
This had created a huge conflict between the Northern Provincial Council and the Central Government and the repeated requests by Wigneswaran to appoint a civilian Governor was rejected for a long time. Wigneswaran had in those days alleged that the Governor’s assent was not given to many statutes (Acts) passed by his provincial council. Ultimately the issues of the Governor and the Chief Secretary were resolved only after a new administration (the Yahapalana Government) was installed at the Centre. 
President Wickremesinghe, while encouraging the Tamil leaders to make use of the PC mechanism had pledged not to intervene in the affairs of the provincial councils. However, this pledge does not grant any assurance of proper devolution in the light of the government’s reluctance to hold the PC elections, the manner in which issues were handled until 2015, and the Governor’s powers to supersede those of the council. Problems must be resolved through mechanisms and not through ‘good people’ or political affiliations/personal connections.