Wastage Of Rs. 14mn Of Public Funds

It is reported that the police is to be given close to Rupees 14 million to remove the illegal posters on display. This is a sheer wastage of people’s money as I am sure all posters of a certain candidate would not be removed even with this funding.

The Elections Commissioner did not have the foresight to order the removal of the posters that were there when the election was announced or even after nomination day. He was dilly dallying. He should have given strict orders to the police that these posters should be removed and no new ones allowed to come up. He should have gone to courts and got the IGP to act.
Now it is too late. The IGP who talked big when assuming office did not have the guts to take action. This is a result of not having the Police Commission under the 17th Amendment to appoint a man with a spine as the police chief.

These posters have already done damage to the election process and removing them now using state funds is no solution and an utter wastage of funds. Intelligent voters should protest this form of action.

As a simple and low cost solution I suggest that the police apply tar on the face of the pictures on all these cutouts and posters which would indicate that these are violations. They could even paste a low cost strip saying this is illegal  and a violation of election law. Then those who put them up would remove them without any cost to the people as it would boomerang on their candidate.

This would cost only one percent of the estimated cost. It would also bring revenue to the local government bodies.

Dilly dallying Elections Commissioner and big talking IGP, over to you.

S. Senarath
Maharagama