Bandula Halts School Development Project In John Seneviratne's Electorate

November 13, 2014

The Minister who is in charge of primary and secondary education of the country, Bandula Gunawardena, has halted the construction of a government school in the District in Rathnapura to pressurize John Seneviratne, one of his Cabinet colleagues to build a new AG office in Homagama.

Rathnapura is the electorate of Minister Seneviratne who, in his capacity as the Ministry of public Administration, should give approval for the construction of the new AG office in the Education Minister’s constituency.

Gunawardena, Asian Mirror reliably learns, has given instruction to relevant parties to delay the construction of the school, until the Minister of Public Administration gives the green light for the new AG office in Homagama.

The school in Rathnapura is a project that comes under the much bragged about 1000 schools projects initiated by the Education Minister. And It is interesting to realize that schools coming under this special project are being traded off for infrastructural facilities in the Minister’s electorate.

At the same time, another question arises as to whether the importance of a government school can be compared with that of a new AG office. If this is the line of thinking of the Education Minister, it shows he has a serious difficulty in identifying priorities!

What requires emphasis here is the manner in which the ministers play ‘politics’ with infrastructure development of the country. It is clear that they conduct development activities not because they worry about the people, but due to political exigencies. Infrastructure development should be based on dire needs and requirements of the people and not according to the preferences of the Ministers who are entrusted with the task of implementing such projects.