Thursday, 4 July 2013 01:51
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The Government has begun a project to destroy the provincial council system or at least to significantly weaken it ahead of the Northern Provincial Council elections, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) said in a statement yesterday, explaining its reasons for not participating in the latest Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) that will convene on 9 July.
The statement by the TNA said in the absence of any Opposition Member of Parliament, this PSC will be nothing but a sub-committee of the Government Parliamentary Group and not a Parliamentary Select Committee and will have no credibility whatsoever.
The TNA said this attempt of the Government, in the teeth of its continued commitment to “implement the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in full, and go beyond and build upon it so as to achieve meaningful devolution” was a regressive step and going back on several assurances given to India, the international community and to the UN.
The statement said that the TNA had resisted pressure to join the PSC to bring about constitutional reforms until a clear agenda for the Committee was set. “The agenda of the Government is now clear to us. It moves to incrementally water down the already-limited provisions of the 13th Amendment: first, by rendering the PC List superfluous; second, by restricting the freedom of peoples to determine administrative boundaries through Parliament; and finally, by removing all constitutional provisions on the devolution of land and police powers. There is no doubt that the proposed PSC will be the vehicle to achieve the above objectives,” the statement said.
The TNA also expressed regret over the fact that Minister Tissa Vitarana, who headed the APRC and who kept inviting the TNA to the PSC from 2011, has been left out of the PSC. “Minister Rauff Hakeem, who told the Indian Parliamentary delegation last year that he will act as a bridge between the Government and the TNA at the PSC deliberations has been left out; and Minister Rajitha Senaratne, who only last week invited the TNA to confidently come into the PSC on the basis that he would support us, has been left out of the PSC,” the statement said.
