“Sarvajana Balaya will have a better future after this election’’ - Sharmila Gonawela

The main priorities for Sarvajana Balaya include security, safety and well-being for women and children, promoting youth engagement and prevention of drug use and revitalising community centres

Fraud in garbage collection in the CMC has gone unnoticed

Council dues for parking have been neglected for many years, with some companies allegedly having racked up Rs. 40-50 million in dues to the CMC

Former Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) member Sharmila Gonawela is on the reserved list of Sarvajana Balaya at the upcoming local government election. Having been at the forefront in exposing corruption that takes place at the CMC, Gonawela observes that it would be difficult for one party to secure a majority at the upcoming election. She is confident that people would be convinced to vote for the Sarvajana Balaya mayoral candidate who aspires to make a change within the CMC. 

Excerpts:

You have been a former municipal councillor and have been actively engaged in exposing corruption. What are your aspirations at the upcoming election? 

Even if Sarvajana Balaya cannot win a majority of seats in the Council, we want to win a number of seats where we could be the decision-making body. We don’t see that one party would get the majority to form the Council this time. We therefore have to ensure that we have our policies, which we want to implement when we go to office. One of the main priorities is with regards to city security in addition to the safety and well-being of women and children. We had a glorious past where football and netball were concerned. The national football team always accommodated so many from the CMC football team and even players from the CMC netball team played for the national netball team as well. But now it is so politicised that one party has been controlling the CMC for so long and it’s all about protecting and preserving their voter base. Therefore, they appointed people to community centres and playgrounds based on favouritism. But this entire system needs to be rearranged by promoting sport and youth engagement. This way, we can prevent youth from becoming addicted to drugs and various other nefarious activities. Then there’s an issue about the spread of non-communicable diseases such as high blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes. We should be able to have these services free-of-charge or at a very nominal rate, where people could come and do those tests. We have Western medical centres, maternity centres and Ayurveda centres which have to be refurbished and transformed to be more appealing to people. People cannot afford to go to private medical centres. The CMC has very good doctors, be it Western medicine or Ayurveda and even at the maternity centres. People, in fact, can afford to obtain these services. 

Even community centres used to serve people a lot, but now many of them have now closed down, isn’t it? 

People gathered at community centres to read papers, play carom, table tennis and then there was a gym used by boys and girls, but all these have been totally neglected. Other bigger projects have attracted some of the officials and councillors. We have to restructure the whole Council again, but this time we believe that a lot of previous councillors may not come to the Council, and we are a new party. In fact, Dilith Jayaweera has a vision for the people, country and the Party. If you have spoken to previous parties who ran the Council, you may have realised that they didn’t have a proper action plan. They didn’t have a vision for the city. The roads were developed or the lanes were paved, or street lights were put up based on ad hoc proposals. But we must ideally have the proper plans and objectives to be achieved. 

Solid waste management and the parking ticket mafia are two main issues that the CMC needs to intervene and ensure that better services are provided to people. If your party members get elected, how would you do these things differently?

Today, the garbage that is collected by the Council goes to the waste-to-energy plant in Kerawalapitiya. Disposing of the garbage that is being collected is not an issue. But before the waste-to-energy project started, we assumed that the Council collected 800 tonnes of garbage. That is what the payments were made for. During this time, lorries were hired to move garbage from Colombo to Kerawalapitiya. The lorry was paid to take garbage and the empty lorry was paid to come back to Colombo. However, audit reports confirmed that the weigh bridge was not functioning for more than two years. We paid for garbage, assuming it was 800 tonnes, but once we started giving garbage to the waste-to-energy project, they built a plant that could accommodate 700-800 metric tonnes of garbage per day, but the daily collection of garbage within the Colombo Municipal area was only 400 metric tonnes. So imagine the money that had been wasted for all those years. But this was never reported by the JVP member who has been sitting in the Council for 20 years! Why can’t this government take action despite having the audit reports and despite knowing that there was a fraud happening? Why can’t officials be held accountable? On the other hand, the CMC should take the blame for the collapse of the Meethotamulla garbage dump. This has been proved via the Presidential report, the CMC report and the report submitted by a special team from Japan. 32 lives were lost and the people affected need to be compensated. This time, if I get elected to the Council, I would definitely speak on behalf of these people and make sure that they are being compensated. The audit report further confirms that the compensation and damages haven’t been paid properly. 

  What about the parking ticket mafia? 

This happens in three different ways. One is with regards to the electric machines that were installed. From day one, the company that installed the machines have violated the agreement with the CMC and they have not paid the money collected by them. The head of the relevant department should have acted under the Public Property Ordinance, where these people could have been arrested. But they didn’t do that. The agreement also says that Council dues need to be paid before the 15th of the following month. But for years, when these people avoided paying dues to the Council, the department head and other officials did nothing. But once I intervened, the Bribery Commission forced the Council to suspend the agreement with this company. There are hundreds of millions that need to be paid to the CMC and they are still negotiating. Secondly, certain members of the CMC and even in Parliament have taken parking slots and they pay a monthly rental to the CMC. But they collect money from people. The monthly fee is minimal compared to what they make out of it, but even those monies are not being paid on time. There are some companies that owe around Rs. 40-50 million to the CMC. It took years to collect some of this money and it continues. Thirdly, there’s a parking slot allocated to a member of the Council. Parking slots of most councillors from Narahenpita etc., are in commercial areas. What happens is that parking slots owned by councillors are given to commercial entities and they earn from it as well. We will have to continue fighting to put an end to such attempts at corruption. 

Colombo is a UNP stronghold and it was always a UNPer that got elected as Colombo’s mayor. But this time, there are no mayoral candidates from UNP? What are your comments? 

In a way, it’s good for the people because our people are so used to voting for the symbol. Things have changed now and the youth are more sensible. Over the last two elections the youth voted with a lot of anger and hatred about the existing trends. But now it is even more important for people to make decisions based on truth and reality. Fighting to bring about truth and make people understand the reality is more important than fixing the economy or anything else in the country. 

How confident are you that your mayoral candidate would win the top seat at the CMC?

People are looking for change and they want uncorrupt people. They want politicians or parties with a vision. We have all that. We don’t want people to look at politicians or the CMC as a place where they get handouts, but as a place with people who will deliver the necessary services, do vocational training etc., to make their lives better. This is the plan we have. On that aspect, I believe that people would be convinced to vote. We are a new group with a new leader and an action plan. My message to voters is a request not to get fooled by the lies that are being told. Very soon, people would realise that this is not what they wanted. Sarvajana Balaya will have a better future after this election.