Why the JM would serve the purpose

BY SHANTHA Perera

IT was a little disconcerting to read in print , in the various daily newspapers, comments, pontifications, assertions, criticisms and mostly recriminations regarding the Joint Mechanism, which was otherwise known as the post-tsunami operational management structure (P-TOMS).

I have been straining my faculties in an attempt to understand the structure and its contents from the various writings which were published daily, to tell the concerned public of Sri Lanka of the manifold aspects of the JM/P-TOMS.

However, there was a grave lack of any consistent line of presentation from which one could have discerned the nature, the contents and effect of the proposed mechanism for the distribution of the tsunami aid. It is in this kind of bewilderment that I was languishing when you have, this morning, published the full text of the joint mechanism for all to read and understand.

This is not to say that the absence of any writing had cramped the style of those who have traditionally taken the path of the blind, leading the blind, perhaps our national pastime.

Having said that I am writing this piece with the hope that you might consider publishing some of these, my random thoughts on the Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure.

An overall reading of the structure strikes me that it is a vehicle devised, essentially, for the controlled delivery of post-tsunami aid under supervision. In doing so the structure has proposed three levels of controls and three levels of supervision. It additionally proposes a bottoms-up process.

The District level committee is charged with the obligation to "identify the needs, receive and generate project proposals and monitor the progress of projects". This fits into a classic development paradigm which has historically, been the darling of donor agencies.

In a report published by the Dag Hammarskjold Institute under the title of "What Now" it laid down a theoretical construct for development programs. In that report it was laid down that there are five golden threads that run through any development paradigm.

First, the proposed paradigm in the P-TOMS allows for people's participation at the grass roots level in determining their needs and in determining how those needs are to be satisfied.

The targeted people who have suffered from the tsunami disaster will then have a say in determining the objects for which the monies may be utilized. This ensures popular participation in the development process.

Secondly, the rule is that development should arise from the praxis of society. Here too, the very society which was affected by the tsunami disaster would now be engaged in repairing the damage and re-developing the lost terrain.

Thirdly, development must be self - reliant. Again, the very total involvement of the community at the district level provides for self reliance. Fourthly, development must be internalized. The engagement of the society at the local level - through District Committees _ helps to internalize development.

Lastly, development must provide an internal order in that it must be conducted in an orderly manner as set out by those who are the targets of such development. This should obviously result in the way that people at the grass roots level might desire the way that the development program should best proceed.

Giving the people, the targets of development, such a power is crucial for the proper implementation of the development process. These five rules form the strands of the golden thread that should run through any development proposal.

These four golden strands may be used in any development project to anchor the four benchmarks which forms the four corners of any development project. What Now laid down four immutable benchmarks. These are: Food, Shelter or Habitat, Health and Education.

The District Committees which are duty-bound to "identify needs" of the people affected by tsunami will be required to identify such needs as those that fall under the aforementioned benchmarks. It is difficult to imagine any "needs" of the people that do not fall within those benchmarks.

There are six District Committees which forms the basic units of development. These are found in each of the six Districts comprising the North and the East. These are the engines for development and they function at the grass roots level.

Projects that have been adopted and proposed by the District Committees must be referred for "prioritizing, approving, managing and monitoring the implementation of projects", by the Regional Committee. Once such project proposal has been selected by the Regional Committee for implementation the process of implementation will be left for the District Committees to be executed. This is a principal feature of the P-TOMS.

However, where the Regional Committee either refuses to implement a project proposal proposed by a District Committee or decides to implement a proposal which appears to be contrary to the interest of the targeted people, then these matters may be raised by any two persons for revision by the Regional Committee.

If such an objection is raised in the Regional Committee then the Regional Committee may overrule that objection only by mustering the votes of seven members to overrule it. This is an important safeguard against the Regional Committee from determining the needs of a minority community using a simple majority. This is a valuable safeguard of minority interests in the decision-making process.

The Regional Committee comprises ten members drawn from all three communities comprising five nominees representing the LTTE, three nominees representing the Muslim and two members representing the Sinhala community.

The LTTE nominees may be expected to be chosen from the Tamil community. This configuration requires the participation of at least two or more communities, to comprise the aforementioned seven votes required to overrule any objections raised by the minorities.

In order to maintain procedural fairness two members from the donor community will be present at each meeting of the Regional Committee.

The Regional Committee is essentially an overarching committee which brings the post-tsunami work conducted in the six Districts of the North and the East under a single umbrella. These six districts are: Ampara, Batticaloa, Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu and Trincomalee.

The "prioritizing, approving, managing and monitoring the implementation of projects" which is a central obligation of the Regional Committee, will be placed within a policy framework, formulated by a High Level Committee (HLC) for the allocation and disbursement of donor funds for the tsunami affected areas.

This High Level Committee will have three members - one nominee from the Government of Sri Lanka, one nominee from the Muslim parties and one from the LTTE. Aside from these, it shall additionally have the presence of two representatives from the international donor community, attending the HLC meetings.

At these meetings consensus among the three members of the HLC is necessary for taking decisions. Where such consensus is not possible then a period of 14 days notice is required before there is any suspension of co-operation in the HLC.

This aspect is reminiscent of the constitutional Commission which drafted the First post Apartheid Constitution of South Africa which was based upon the principle of Consociational Democracy.

There, whenever there was no consensus on any particular aspect of the proposed constitution, then that matter was shelved and left to the members to work out a compromise, outside the meetings of the Commission. Perhaps such a method might be adopted in the event of such an impasse in the HLC.

The functions of the High Level Committee covers all tsunami affected areas of the whole Island and is not limited to the North and the East. The participation of the LTTE in the HLC should erase the idea that the LTTE's role is limited to North and the East providing it with a separatist framework.

By pressing it into service at the HLC, the LTTE is then regarded as a participant in the post-tsunami development of the whole Island, shedding its separatist policies of being exclusively concerned with the development of areas only under their control.

Equally, the other two communities - Sinhala and the Muslim members of the HLC are able to participate in the post-tsunami development of the areas considered to be within sphere of influence of the LTTE.

Therefore the importance of the composition of the HLC is that it facilitates the interpenetration of the three ethnic groups into all areas of the Island. It leaves no part of the Island the exclusive domain of a particular ethnic group. That is indeed a very important observation which one could make of the structure and the functions of the P-TOMS.

The paradigm provided by the P-TOMS presents a dovetailing of the three levels established for the allocation and distribution of post-tsunami funds, thus providing a kind of a symbiotic structure.

There are some particular observations that might be gathered from this paradigm.

First, the application of P-TOMS is limited to an area of two miles from the coastline of the land area affected by the tsunami. Second, its operation is limited to one year unless both parties agree to an extension of that period.

Third, the High Level Committee functions as a committee for the whole of Sri Lanka and is primarily concerned in setting out general guidelines along which post-tsunami aid will be disbursed throughout Sri Lanka.

Fourth, a careful study of the structure reveals that it does not involve any devolution of state powers but provides a structured administrative vehicle to distribute the donor funds to the needy, in the areas in which these are urgently and particularly needed. Fifthly, the contents of the P-TOMS need not have been put into the form of a bilateral agreement to be signed by two parties.

The contents could have formed a mere administrative direction sent to the various district administrations directing them to administer the donor funds. Lastly, the contents of the P-TOMS had been given a life of its own, by it being included in a well drafted document. This appears to have turned a distant ripple into a tsunami sized tidal wave.