http://www.nation.lk/2011/10/02/newsfe2.htm


Gotabhaya pledges to make Colombo a City of Excellence

Making Colombo a beautiful city is very high on the priorities of the government as the end of the war and ushering in peace has made Colombo the epicenter of development with vast potential for foreign direct investment and rapid growth of tourism. In an interview with The Nation Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said the ultimate target of making Colombo a beautiful city was to give the people living in Colombo a better life
By Chandana KariyawasamHighlights of the interview:
Q: The Defence Ministry has gone beyond its normal purview and is making a considerable contribution to the development of the country. In this exercise as Defence Secretary you are the key player. What is this new difference the country has not seen prior to now?A: The biggest challenge faced by President Rajapaksa during his first term after being elected in 2005 up to 2010 was to defeat terrorism in the country. All the forces such as the army, navy, air force, police and the civil defence force were directed to achieve that objective.In his second term of office President Rajapaksa brought the Urban Development Authority as well as the Land Reclamation Board as the President felt it was necessary to take development to the grassroots level in the rural sector and a vibrant development thrust was taking in regions like Anuradhapura, Hambantota, Trincomalee and Jaffna and in fact the whole country.Colombo in this scenario is becoming a special city as a large number of foreign investors are prepared to make investments and tourism industry is experiencing a boom with a very large number of tourist arrivals after the war ended. In this scenario Colombo becomes a vital city being the commercial centre with the main port, airport as well as administrative centre and the President wanted Colombo to experience a rapid pace of development and to correlate the Defence Ministry with this exercise. When we look at this new trend there are areas where police are needed, areas where the contribution of the navy or army are needed. The increase of personnel of the three armed forces we did to defeat terrorism also gave them experience in working on time, their discipline and achieving objectives that could be used in development.
Q: The usual duty of the police and the armed forces is maintaining law and order in the country. But are these forces affiliated to the development tasks of Colombo for preventing or quelling protests or demonstrations?A: It is not for such a purpose but as I said before to increase efficient management of projects. For example if you take the case of cleaning up the Beira Lake during the past two years, the navy was able to perform this task so efficiently that many other government agencies could not do so. Let us also look at the instance of how police came to help in this task. Disposal of garbage in the city was a knotty problem in the past but we created environmental protection units in the police stations so that we were able to dispose of the city’s garbage without obstructions to it.
Q: A rapid development effort is witnessed in Colombo and its suburban areas. Is there transparency and sustainability in this programme?A: If you take these areas, it is centred on Colombo city, Dehiwala-Mt. Lavinia, Kotte and Kolonnawa towns where the rapid development programme is activated. A number of departments are interconnected in this effort as one department cannot implement it. The main players are the Urban Development Authority, Land Reclamation Authority as well as the local government institutions of each area but the financial provision of all these bodies but we are using funds very efficiently. If we take the example of the Colombo municipality the revenue of the CMC is used to attend to the day to day problems of its citizens over the years. As you are aware, if we take Colombo’s garbage disposal task, for over many many years it was in disarray. Roads were not cleaned, posters polluted the entire city and though the Municipal Council should resolve these problems it was not done. But we stepped in with the environment protection units of the police and made a survey of the whole city and cleaned up the city. Now we are using the revenue of the CMC for development programmes, especially for building housing complexes for the low income groups of Colombo who are living in rundown shanty towns. We have been able to find additional funds through the Housing Development Authority for this task.
Q: Is it because the other government development agencies do not have efficiency that you chose to use the armed forces for these development programmes?A: For whatever reasons the garbage disposal, maintenance of the drainage system and canals that drain rainwater were not taking place. There were no repairs and the maintenance was left behind and there was a breakdown of these services. People had no sidewalks on almost all of the city streets, playgrounds were not maintained properly and all these failures affected the public. Though the CMC collected rates and taxes, there was a setback in all these sectors.We have been able to attend to some of these services and development tasks that had lagged behind. For example we developed the road from Kollupitiya to Bambalapitiya in this task the CMC invested its fund and activated the programme. The Electricity Board also cooperated in relocating the street lamp posts in the appropriate places but we appointed army officers to coordinate the work on this programme. The Defence Ministry gave the lead to these programmes and as there was no municipal council we were able to get the cooperation of the municipal commissioner and the special commissioner and the employees in making these tasks successful.Certain contractors were selected to clean the streets, remove posters and if necessary to wash and brush the streets but if these tasks were not performed by the contractor the environment protection units of the police stations will report such lapses to the CMC and the municipal commissioners have the power to terminate their contracts and appoint a new contractor. The environment protection units of the police stations perform a valuable service in keeping the city clean.
Q: Most people would like to know your physical plans aimed at raising the quality of life of the citizens of Colombo. Could you elaborate?A: These are not only physical plans. A true development means one that would give relief to the citizens of Colombo as well as for those who use the city. If a simple example is given pavements are meant for pedestrians to go about the city but for various reasons if unauthorized structures are erected on the pavement it is an obstruction to the public. We therefore removed the unauthorized structures and repaired the pavements that were in a state of disrepair. We faced bouquets and brick bats. But today pedestrians move about the city’s pavements free of obstruction.It is essential for people to be healthy and they need exercises for it and as you know the parks and playgrounds in the city were in a state of neglect. The navy took charge of cleaning up and repairing these places. We have cleared up the area around the Independence Square so that people could take a walk and we have also started developing the playgrounds in the places where the low income groups live.President Mahinda Rajapaksa pointed out that a group of people with very low living standards are living in the centres of the city. Most of them are living in unauthorized structures, some were living adjacent to the railway tracks without even the basic amenities of living without garbage disposal and sanitary facilities for little children, youth and others. They had a few common toilets barely sufficient for the large numbers in these settlements. How are they living in such appalling conditions and the President wanted these people to live in proper housing units with necessary facilities and we are building housing schemes with all the facilities and services for these unfortunate people of Colombo.
Q: One of the allegations made against the government is that you want to evict these unfortunate from their present shanty towns and relocate them outside the city so that the land could be given to the business community. Is this true?A: If I reply to that in short, it is a blatant lie. Most political parties over a long period of time had formulated a policy of giving these people proper housing units but over the years the numbers in shanty towns had increased and we made a complete survey of such settlements and found that most of these people were employed within the city in places like Pettah contributing to the economy of the city and one cannot take them away from Colombo without disrupting the city’s economy. Sri Lanka is a democratic country and no one could forcibly evict anyone from their dwellings and relocate them elsewhere and there is no necessity to do such a thing.
Q: Did you use the armed forces to do these surveys on the shanty towns of Colombo?A: No. University students did the survey in addition to the officials of the UDA and Land Reclamation Board.
Q: But it appears that the people living in shanty towns are not made aware of your plans to relocate them in proper housing units within the city itself. Have you educated these people on your plans?A: If they have not been educated on these plans it is a lapse. If they were made aware of our plans much misconception could have been avoided. In fact this is not a simple but a very complex and difficult task and if we are to succeed we have to put up 35,000 housing units to accommodate these people at a very high cost almost 2.5 million rupees for each housing unit. But there is not enough land within the city for putting up houses at ground level. Therefore we decided to go for flats and allocate the present lands for private sector business but unfortunately these locations are not suitable for business.Our plans were changed to give business community, both local and foreign, suitable land in the city on 30 – 60 year leases and invest the funds we get from leasing to build housing schemes, flats, for the shanty town people.
Q: Parliamentarian Mangala Samaraweera has said breaking down walls in the city is not turning the Colombo to a developed city?A: I think he believes that all we are doing is breaking down walls. The development taking place is a complex process interconnected with many challenges like controlling and draining out runoff rainwater during monsoons. Cleaning up canals for drainage, management sewers and development infrastructure are all in this plan. Our plan to make Colombo a city of excellence is supported by the World Bank