AruniW

I have served as a Municipal Councillor since 2018. I have seen how the then government worked in the past and how it is operating today by NPP. There may be less corruption now, and that must be acknowledged. But it is also fair to ask: why are the local councils still failing to deliver? Yesterday, Colombo was flooded unprecedentedly Who is responsible—the CMC, the RDA, the UDA? It is easy to point fingers at individual institutions. But the bigger question is this: where is the political leadership that should be coordinating, monitoring tasks and taking responsibility? What I see in the present administration is a serious lack of accountability. When something goes wrong, the very next moment the blame is pushed onto government officials, with political leaders saying that implementation is the officials’ job. Officials do have duties. But political leaders cannot escape their own responsibility to set priorities, supervise performance and make sure public services work. One must question as to what the present day political administration in these councils are doing? What the local councilors are doing? Good governance cannot mean simply expecting the system to take over, in a country that systems do not always function as they should. Systems have to be built, strengthened and monitored. Until that happens, political leaders must do the hard work of leading and administering. This failure is visible across the country. Drive from Ratmalana to Moratuwa and look at the state of our roadsides: grass on the centre islands is over three feet high in many places, while rubbish is left uncleared. These are basic responsibilities. When even the basics are neglected, people are entitled to ask whether those in charge can administer effectively. People pay taxes expecting public services in return. If the government collects taxes, it has a duty to deliver. You cannot run a country on speeches, or rely on repressive laws while failing to address people’s everyday problems. The basic responsibilities of a council is to keep the city clean, clear and maintain the drains, and look after the roads. Yet across the country, we see rubbish left uncleared, drainage neglected and roads in a shocking state of disrepair. At the end of the NPP’s tenure, what will people be left with? If this continues, we may see the systems that were already in place broken down, with no effective new systems built to replace them—and a country left in a worse condition than before. That possibility is becoming harder to ignore when even the most basic public services are failing. The NPP must be honest with the public: it has failed at many levels. Admitting that is not weakness. It is the first step towards taking responsibility and putting things right. Governing means more than making promises. It means leading, supervising and delivering results. When the city floods, when streets are dirty, drains are neglected and roads fall apart, people deserve answers from their leaders—not another round of blame-shifting.

We need this in LK too to reduce home prices.