Video: LG elections by March next year

16 October 2015 10:51 am

Minister of Local Government and Provincial Councils, Faizer Mustapha said today the government was making every effort to hold the elections to the local government by March next year under the first-past-the-post system.

The minister said there wasn’t much more to be done with regard to the finalizing of the election process now that the delimitation report had also been submitted to the President.

He said the Elections Commissioner also had said that it was possible to hold the local government elections under the new system.

The minister said neither the President nor the Prime Minister wanted to delay the local government elections and that the term of office of 22 local government bodies were extended after considering the requests made by some local government politicians that they needed more time to complete the work they had begun.

The minister said he was planning to set up a special unit within the ministry to fast track the investigations into the complaints received by the ministry with regard to the corruption at local government level and that he had discussed with the police chief and hoped to discuss this matter with the Bribery Commission Chief as well.  (Ajith Siriwardana)

WATCH