Vehicle shortage hampers Jaffna development

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 June 2002, 17:53 GMT]
A persistent shortage of official vehicles for civil administrators is hampering rehabilitation and reconstruction work in war-ravaged Jaffna, officials in the northern town said. Four Divisional Secretaries in the Jaffna district have not been provided with vehicles for development work by Colombo. The official vehicle of the Chankanai Divisional Secretary (DS), which was commandeered by the Sri Lanka Army under Emergency Regulations for requisitioning of vehicles and property, is yet to be returned.

The Chankanai DS, Mr. K. Ratnam, requested the military in the SLA's main base in Palaly, Jaffna that the vehicle be returned to his office at the army's 'earliest convenience'. But he has not received a reply so far, sources said.

"The army commandeered the vehicle under the Emergency Regulations. The Emergency lapsed last year. There are no legal grounds for the army to keep the vehicle now," an official pointed out.

The Divisional Secretaries of Jaffna, Nallur, Maruthankerni and Neduntheevu are unable to engage in development and rehabilitation work because they have no official vehicles to visit remote parts of their administrative divisions, Jaffna district secretariat sources said.

In the meantime, computers donated to four schools in the LTTE held Killinochchi district are idling without electricity supply, an education official said. No action has been taken by the Department of Education to supply generators to these schools to operate the computers. The schools supplied with computers are, Murasumottai Murugananda Vidiyalyam, Killinochchi Central College, Killinochchi St.Theresa Maha Vidiyalyam and Mulankavil Maha Vidiyalyam.

Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian Mr. M. K. Sivajilingam, meanwhile, promised the Killinochchi zonal director of education that he would allocate necessary funds from his decentralized budget to install solar power panels in these schools to operate the computers.