Polls chief refutes allegations of ‘helplessness’
Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya, in response to a July 8 Sunday Times news item titled ‘Violation of polls laws: Election chief helpless’, has said:
Your headline explicitly mentions that the Commissioner of Elections is helpless. I have valid reasons to point out to you that is not so. Although the Commissioner of Elections doesn’t interfere with the activities of the Public Service Commission (PSC), I have already circulated a document dated 28-06-2012, requesting the Secretaries of all Ministries, Chief Secretaries of Provincial Councils and all relevant authorities concerned to refrain from such recruitment and promoting which are carried out without the direct supervision of the PSC, relevant to the administrative districts of the Provincial Councils that have been dissolved.
I have already informed of this at the Media Briefing held on 04-07-2012 and at the Political Party Secretaries Meeting held on 06-07-2012.
If you could furnish me with detailed information of the “recruitments” you have published in your paper, I may investigate such violations, to find if there were any irregularities in the process, causing an impact on the elections.
The headline, “Election chief helpless”, completely ignores and disregards our effort in conducting Free and Fair Elections and hinders our efforts in building trust and confidence among the public towards the Department of Elections.
News Editor’s response: Details regarding the complaints about recruitment, appointments and transfers taking place after the calling of the nominations, has already been placed by opposition political parties and independent election monitoring groups. To date, we have not heard of any instances where any intervention has been made to cancel these appointments and transfers.
The Commissioner of Elections, during his meeting with political party secretaries and election monitoring groups, had conceded that the powers of the Elections Commissioner had reduced, following the 18th Amendment. It was a similar position the Commissioner shared with the Sunday Times.
The continuity of such appointments and transfers,(please see our Page 1 lead story) and misuse of State resources, is an indication that no steps have been taken to halt this practice.