20th June 1998

When they turn at U-turns and pavements are roads

Recently a top government officer clarified that pavements are meant for pedestrians and not for hawkers. Perhaps he has just missed one point. They are also meant to be used as vehicle parks. I still hope I am wrong, but this is indeed what is happening.

Successive governments recognised the value of Duplication Road as an additional and major access road to and from the city centre.

Today, there is hardly a road left; it has become a vehicle park all the way from Colpetty to Hildon Place. The pavement itself is not excluded. This is so even on Galle Road and calls for the opening of a Triplication Road to serve as an additional vehicle park. Vehicles making U-turns at unauthorized places without any feeling for other road users are another fast growing menace.

I have seen drivers taking U-turns holding up a stream of traffic, and going to the next junction to take another U-turn holding up the same row of vehicles. Not very long ago, I saw a learner driver taking a lesson. The first lesson he got was to hold up all the traffic and take a U-turn. So much for that.

Dr.A.K.J.C. Amerasinghe
Colombo 4

So expensive to say just a hello

There are communication centres in every corner of the city, because it is a lucrative business.

People who use these centres are those who cannot afford a phone in their homes.

These centres charge various rates on phone calls and faxes. Sometimes for a fax, the duration of which is 1.1. minute, they charge for 2 minutes and in some centres they charge Rs. 10/- as paper charges for the acknowledgment slips.

The poor customer is taken for a ride.

The Government must specify the rates chargeable from the public and fix digital clocks within the phone booths to enable the customers to be satisfied as to the duration of the call. I have been to several communication centres, but the rates are different in each.

I also would like to point out that - most of the telephone booths, Lanka Pay Phone, Metro, Tritell and Supercard are not functioning properly. Thus we are forced to go to a communication centre.

M.S. Ali
Grandpass

Surely, one regulator will do

The Sunday Times of June 13 states that the World Bank is to fund more regulators. Isn't it terribly expensive for a poor country like Sri Lanka to have a multiplicity of regulators?

Australia has only one regulator - the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. It regulates all public utilities - Gas, Electricity, Telecommunications, Rail, Airports, Ports and Shipping.

Detailed Reports of the Commission's regulatory work are published in the Annual Reports of the Commission and also in its bi-monthly Journal.

In Sri Lanka too we should have only one regulator - the proposed Consumer Protection Authority.

F.D.C Wijesinghe
Kotte

Best kept secret of Muthurajawela

I am a member of the Muthurajawela management committee chaired by the secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Construction. The Muthurajawela United Peoples Organisation has been active in the planning and the implementation process of the Muthurajawela master plan.

But our frequent questioning of the proposed cultural centre at Muthurajawela was never heeded by the authorities.

The members of management committee were kept ignorant of the multimillion rupee project.

They were not invited for the official foundation laying ceremony.

We of the Muthurajawela United Peoples Organisation are thankful to Ms. Frederica Jansz of "The Sunday Times" for revealing the truth about the "best kept secret of Muthurajawela".

As a people's organisation we believe in constant dialogue between the electorate and the government to make parliamentary democracy viable.

But this whole episode is a classic example of the breakdown of dialogue between the electorate and the government.

Dialogue is an essential element in representative democracy. This is a serious contradiction - the contradiction of representative democracy not representing the ruled but the ruler, "democracy not expressing the sovereignty of the people but the power of the governing party." Such representative democracy is a sham and irony.

Even at this late stage, we as members of a civic organisation request the members of parliament representing Gampaha District and those specially representing Wattala, whether in the government or the opposition to initiate a dialogue with the electorate.

The following questions may help.

1. Why does the government want to spend Rs. 600 million for a "multi-religious" complex at Muthurajawela when Muthurajawela communities need capital for infrastructure and human development programmes?

2. Why the Christian cultural component was neglected in the planning of this multi-religious construction?

3. Why the Muthurajawela management committee was kept ignorant of the project within Muthurajawela?

4. Why was the electorate not consulted on this initiative within the electorate?

5. As this seems to be a national venture to ward off ill-effects on Sri Lanka from a temple in South India why were the national religious leaders not consulted?

V.L. Peries
Chief Animator
Muthurajawela United Peoples Organisation

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