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The Sri Lankan government yesterday said it will not fully implement the recommendations of a post-war commission despite calls to do so by the international community. |
Government cabinet spokesman and minister Keheliya Rambukwella said that of the 180 recommendations made by the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), the government will implement 144
recommendations.
The minister said the government has already implemented 45 recommendations and is in the process of implementing the others stage by stage,
Xinhua reported.
A committee headed by the secretary to the president is engaged in monitoring the implementation of the 144 recommendations of the LLRC contained in the National Plan of Action, out of which, 45 are deemed to be completed, 89 are ongoing and 10 are in the early stage of implementation.
The minister said a proposal made by President Mahinda Rajapakse to establish a special bureau for reconciliation to function under the secretary to the president and to carry out tasks entrusted to it for the purpose of facilitating the committee’s work in monitoring the implementation of the LLRC recommendations, was approved
by the cabinet yesterday.
Rambukwella noted that the implementation of some recommendations requires constitutional changes.
“More than one-third of the proposals have been implemented. There are certain recommendations which require constitutional amendments. That’s a long process,” he noted.
The minister noted that a parliament committee was also appointed to address some of the issues related to constitutional changes, but the main minority Tamil party in Sri Lanka - the Tamil National Alliance has so far boycotted the process.
He noted that even India has urged the Tamil National Alliance to join the parliament committee.
Energy prices slashed: Sri Lanka’s president has slashed gas prices by 10% after making hefty cuts to fuel and electricity tariffs that have been widely seen as sweeteners ahead of snap elections.
President Mahinda Rajapakse ordered treasury chief Punchi Banda Jayasundera to reduce gas prices by just over 10%, the government information department said late on Thursday.
Speculation that Rajapakse will call a snap presidential poll has mounted, after his party opened an election campaign office last month.
The move came after the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance saw its vote plummet by over 20 percentage points in local elections.
Rajapakse gained popularity among the majority Buddhist Sinhalese-speaking community by crushing Tamil separatists in May 2009, but rising hate attacks and human rights issues have alienated minority
communities.
The president has the power to call an election before completing his second six-year term, which is due to end in
November 2016.
Ruling party seniors have privately argued that it would be advantageous for him to do so before his popularity wanes further.
The government on Tuesday brought forward the 2015 budget by a month to October 24, in a further indication it is preparing to go to the polls in January.
But at a conference in Colombo, Jayasundera denied the budget would contain “election goodies”, saying that it would be “a development-oriented budget”.
If held in the first half of January, the elections would come just before a visit by Pope Francis, who has announced he will be on the island from
January 13 to 15.
The Roman Catholic Church in Sri Lanka has asked all politicians not to use the papal visit as a political tool in their campaigning to secure votes from the 7.5% of the population that is Christian.