LG polls in June 2016 after amendments

The Local Government and Provincial Councils Ministry expects to enact amendments to the local government electoral system before the expiry of office of remaining 23 local government bodies by April 2016, enabling the government to call local government polls in June, a senior official source said yesterday.

Secretary of the Local Government and Provincial Councils, Kamal Pathmasiri while expressing his deep satisfaction over the government’s decision to postpone local government polls by another six months told Daily Mirror that the Ministry expects to consider all important and acceptable proposals submitted by the public, civil society and political parties and incorporate amendments accordingly to the local government electoral reforms.

Mr. Pathmasiri said the Local Government and Provincial Councils have already identified 31 amendments to be incorporated in the Local Government.

“Our main concern was to attend to nearly 2,000 petitions that had been sent by a cross section of the society including political parties in disagreement with the National De-limitation Commission recommendations to the five member committee headed by Mr. Asoka Peiris. Now that the government has postponed the office of 23 local government bodies until June 30 and thereby effectively the local government polls, we have ample time to finish the job at least by May,” Mr. Pathmasiri said. (Sandun A Jayasekera)