ECONOMYNEXT \u2013 A Sri Lankan opposition legislator has criticized the government\u2019s 2027 budget speech for failing to mention or allocate provisions for long-delayed Provincial Council elections, while accusing the administration of stripping away devolved powers.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrevious governments had a policy on their policy statement: they would mention the Provincial Council elections,\u201d Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) MP Shanakiyan Rasamanickam told parliament during the budget debate.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot a single word about the Provincial Council election! About the Provincial elections, you haven\u2019t mentioned a word, but what have you mentioned? You are taking away the powers of the Provincial Council.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rasamanickam pointed out that the government was taking over six provincial hospitals \u2014 Mullaitivu, Mannar, Kilinochchi, Vavuniya, Avissawella, and Gampaha \u2014 while continuing to delay the polls.<\/p>\n
The 2027 national budget presented by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake proposed to transfer to
\nthe central Government the District General Hospitals of Mannar, Mullaitivu, Vavuniya, Kilinochchi, Gampaha and Avissawella, which are administered by the Provincial Councils, out of the 20 District General Hospitals.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are taking away power that was given to the Provincial Council, whilst not having Provincial Council elections,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cLast year, powers given to the provinces regarding environmental policies \u2014 you\u2019ve taken it back, with no consent of the Provincial Council.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also criticized the budget speech for making no mention of land release issues in the North and East, a new constitution, or the government\u2019s pledge to abolish the executive presidency.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this budget, I must also mention, not only the Provincial Council election, about the new constitution \u2014 not a single word about the constitution! What is happening to your plans and proposals of abolishing the executive presidency? Where is the new constitution?\u201d Rasamanickam questioned.<\/p>\n
The legislator further raised concerns over proposed legislation, including the Protection of the State from Terrorism Act (PSTA) and the Organized Crime Bill, arguing they were more repressive than the existing Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) they are meant to replace.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe trajectory of this government is worrying to me. It\u2019s really worrying to me,\u201d Rasamanickam said.
\n\u201cBecause if the objective is to say that there is no Tamil national question, if the objective is to say that you all have resolved any ethnic issue that this country faced, then I think the Tamil people will teach this government a very, very, very harsh lesson in the future.\u201d (Colombo\/Nov13\/2026)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ECONOMYNEXT \u2013 A Sri Lankan opposition legislator has criticized the government\u2019s 2027 budget speech for failing to mention or allocate provisions for long-delayed Provincial Council elections, while accusing the administration […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sripuwath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sripuwath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sripuwath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sripuwath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sripuwath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sripuwath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sripuwath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sripuwath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sripuwath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sripuwath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}