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Many letters to the press from public spirited persons have focused
attention of the authorities on the health hazards caused by the high
sounding noise tooting of horns of vehicles haphazardly.
The authorities which are vested with power on this matter are the
Police under the Police Ordinance and Local Authorities, under the
Municipal Councils Ordinance and the Urban Councils Ordinance the Latin
phrase Salus populi suprema lex.
The safety of the people is the supreme law. Regard to the public
welfare is the highest law. The main aim of every Government should be
the well-being of the people; the establishment of law and order and
safety and the diffusion of social happiness.
It is pertinent to state that ever since the Police Ordinance,
Nuisance Ordinance and the Municipal Councils Ordinance (1862-1862)
powers over nuisance abatement and prohibition are vested in the
respective authorities.
Local Authorities have been slow in the implementation of their
powers and indifferent to the health hazards that affect the health of
the people through noise pollution.
Professor Dr. C. G. Weeramantry, the eminent jurist of International
fame in his essay on ‘Threatened Peripheries’ stated that in the
application of the Laws in the law books to matters in the field, there
are glaring discrepancies.
The Kandy Municipal Council was the first Local Authority to enact By
- Laws in 1941 during the Second World War prohibiting the use of high
sounding instruments on vehicles during certain times of the day and
night.
These by Laws were published in the Government Gazette on December
19, 1941. In 1950, under the Motor Car Ordinance, regulations were
framed prohibiting the use of vehicles with high sound instruments on
certain roads and streets in Kandy.
A special officer called Nuisance Detection Officer was detailed to
every street and road in the Kandy Municipality and report to the
Municipal Commissioner daily.
The Central Environmental Authority should get the assistance of the
Municipal Councils and the Urban Councils with their Public Health
Inspectors for the effective implementation of the regulations to
activate the law in the books.
Cecil Jayasinghe
– Kandy
We had values in the 40s and 50s, but today all those values seem to
have evaporated. When the second world war came to our doorstep, we had
men who were called for battle, homes were weeping and gnashing their
teeth, parents, wives, brothers and sisters were crying. I do not know
how many lost their lives. But I remember my elder brother was enlisted
only to serve within Ceylon.
Today, after 60 years we are having a war within ourselves.
Hundreds of youth are being killed with no moral consequence to our
society. What has happened to our social values?
In another perspective, we are ever prepared to send our brethren to
far and near countries in the hope that they will bring sustenance to
the rest of the population.
We have crated institutions to streamline the departure of these lads
and lasses.
We are unashamedly awaiting their billions of dollars. We do not care
that we are damaging the social fabric of our families, we are only
concerned about the material outcome.
There is no doubt that during the 40s and 50s men and women went
overseas for rather specific assignments or for studies, but now it is a
crying shame to see advertisements calling for large numbers of men and
women for various jobs.
There are so many more situations where we can see that all our
values have been destroyed or side stepped. The alarming question is
that we have accepted these deteriorations and there does not seem to be
any concern by the ordinary man in the street.
What are our temples, churches and mosques doing? Though we as a
nation are enjoying the most number of religious holidays in the world,
the benefit seems to be elusive.
WALTER FERNANDO
- Ratmalana
With the helpful and devoted hard work of two social workers of the
area, the Ahungalla Railway Station and its access road was opened
during the colonial days on 26.11.1947.
Similarly, the adjoining Maha Kumbura Ela (Drainage channel) and its
road was opened on 09.05.1968 by an officer of the Ceylon Civil Service
who was then the Minister of Irrigation and Power. None of them wanted
to name these two roads by their own names, but the people have
continued to use these roads and never failed to remember them. The two
roads remain as memorials to them.
It is sad to see some of the present day politicians having a
peculiar complex to rename these old roads after them only because they
have had the privilege of seeing the use of Government voted funds in a
routine process of converting tar, metal, cement and sand with the help
of Government labour for a repaired road surface while several people
who have donated their valuable lands are silent.
This present day peculiar complex will change one day for the people
to say ‘old order change the yielding place to new.’
Thus the Railway Station Road and the Maha Kumbura Ela Road will
remain so for ever, without any name added as a prefix imposed.
May the land donors be given the last laugh to laugh best when the
new names are not used.
Y. A. de Silva
- Ahungalla
The public service of today - to say the least - is probably at its
lowest ever ebb. I say this with responsibility. Today if you go to any
public department, office or corporate body to get any work done - you
will be simply pushed from pillar to post.
Hardly can you get even a very trivial job done in a hurry.
At every nook and corner you are compelled to ‘oil the palm’ of some
one or the other.
Today nothing can be done for summa. Unless you part with some amount
of your hard-earned money absolutely nothing can be expected from our
public sector.
Although the Government offices are scheduled to start work at 8.30
a.m., it will be a shocking surprise if you can see the officers in
his/her seat even at 9.30 a.m.
Even if the officer is available you will have to wait until he/she
has finished breakfast, reading the newspaper, or chatting with others.
Then you are offered a luke-warm treatment, you will be required wait
a further time until the particular file is found, then to get your
matter expedited again the same old ritual. Even if you are to offer
jarawa there are occasions when your job will not be done.
Sadly no official however much high a position, post or command, he
or she may hold is ready to go out their way to help the public. They
strictly stick by the ARs and FRs.
They are never willing to take responsibility and go out of their way
to help the public by taking a decision on their own disregarding AR and
FR. What use of a Government servant - viz. a Ministry Secretary, Actg.
Secy, Asst. Secy, a Director, Asst. Director or any staffer if they
cannot go beyond the ARs and FRs and take a decision of their own to
justify a public need?
I can cite not one, but several instances of blatant and scant
disrespect to the public by some high ranking and mid-level public
servants.
Then by 12 noon nobody is at their seat, all gone for lunch and will
return only after 2 or 2.30 p.m. for all are used to relax, play carom
or table tennis, read newspapers (for women to gossip, sew clothes etc.)
for over an hour after their lunch. Then by 4 p.m. all counters closed,
desks locked up and officers all walking out one by one. When you are
supposed to work a solid 8 hours a day and you work only 5 hours or less
a day in actual practice, can we expect a country to develop?
The other startling thing is there is hardly any co-operation and
co-ordination inter-departmental or inter-public sector institutions and
local bodies.
The officers conveniently shelve responsibility and duty and always
try to pass the buck to the other.
If you go to your local PS, you are asked to go to the UDA, who in
turn direct you to the PS and so on. We are sent on a merry-go-round
until we are fed up with the whole set up.
To all those responsible and in authority - from our
politician-rulers to the bureaucracy, I make this ardent appeal on
behalf of the suffering masses, the poor general public.
Unless some stern and firm action is taken to stamp out bribery,
waste and corruption from all levels of the public service, unless
responsible officers dare willing to take decisions on their own whither
ARs and FRs, the rot will continue, the general public will lose faith
in the system and the public service will become an ‘eye-sore’.
RANJITH C. DISSANAYAKE
- Deputy President Eksath Lanka Maha Sabha
Plantic for cousin plastic is supposed to be very popular and seems
to be tackling food packaging in grand style in Australia currently -
please refer to Reader’s Digest of January 2008, under the heading ‘33
things you should have thought up.’
If this food packaging of another Western styled country, with its
various indigenous differences should mean or infer something more than
mere snacks and sandwiches, then it should be a big ‘break-through’ for
all the accursed polythene users of our region too - all grocery items
ranging from vegetables to mustard seeds could be collected in packages
and transferred piecemeal onto a multi-purpose master rattan bag
(gondola shaped rattan baskets) with both ends meeting to form the
handle, once in vogue around our local market scenarios.
W. Meadows
- Dehiwala
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