Is the President himself needed to tighten the screws on the state machinery?

A proposal submitted by the Social Services Division at the Galle District Coordination Committee held recently under the patronage of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake mentioned a project to build a toilet system for visually impaired children.

At that time, the President stated that the toilet system to be built under the relevant project could be better than the house where the visually impaired child lives. What the President meant by this is clearly nothing but the backwardness of the state projects being implemented in the country.

If a house where a luxurious toilet system is built is a cattle shed built in extreme poverty, then the President has realized the failure of the state intervention in that project.

A number of presidents who have ruled this country in the past have participated in the District Coordination Committees. There, those presidents listened to the state officials like parrots, listening to the accounts and the things they said and did, but they did not go to dig and investigate anything. The District Coordination Committees existed only in name. Those presidents listened to the speeches of the state officials for hours according to the agenda of the meeting.⁣ On some occasions, some presidents even insulted the state officials. However, in the end, both parties parted happily.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's attention was also drawn to a water pipeline project planned to be implemented in the Galle district. It was revealed that although four years have passed since the water tank was built under that project, the Road Development Authority would not approve the laying of the water pipeline over the Gintota Bridge.

The President stated that since the laying of the water pipe had taken so long, financial provisions may have to be allocated for the maintenance of the water tank built for the project, without blaming the weakness of the state officials. This incident reveals the unfortunate situation that the citizens of this country have to experience due to the tug-of-war between two state institutions.

Since the Road Development Authority was opposed to laying the water pipe over the Gintota Bridge, the water supply officials could have been thinking about it for years to come. But the President did not remain silent after hearing about it. He gave advice on how to implement the project. In fact, those solutions were not difficult mathematical problems. They were simple solutions. That problem was a problem that the state officials in charge of that water project could have solved simply by thinking about it. But they have been playing tug-of-war by sending letters here and there about it.

Now we can be happy.

That is because the high-ranking officials who were forced to show their ropes and show their power to the bulls could not be done with this President.

But unfortunately, it is sad that the President has to pay attention to every single nail and bolt of the state machinery even though he has a force of 159 officials. The Chairman of the Galle District Committee is Deputy Minister Nalin Hewage. The Deputy Minister’s inability to complete the water pipeline project that has been going on for four years is the best example of this.

The fact that the issue regarding the water pipeline project, which was included in the agenda until the President came to the District Committee, had not received attention before is a serious weakness of the political power authority. Because the problem is not so serious that it cannot be solved.

D. Liyanarachchi ✍️