Author: TELO Admin

Hanaa Singer, the Resident Coordinator of the United Nations in Sri Lanka, who is leaving upon completion of her service, paid a courtesy call on President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Monday (19).

The President engaged in cordial conversation with Singer and thanked her for the services she had rendered to Sri Lanka and wished her the best of luck in her future endeavours.

Hanaa Singer herved as the Resident Coordinator of the United Nations in Sri Lanka since September 07, 2018.

As the UN Resident Coordinator in Srilanka, Ms Hanaa Singer led a UN Country Team of 22 resident and non-resident UN Agencies. She is the representative of the UN Secretary-General in Sri Lanka.

Ms Singer has worked for close to 30 years across development and humanitarian contexts at various senior management and strategic leadership roles.

Prior to this appointment, she has held several senior management positions in UNICEF offices across the world, including as the Associate Regional Director in Geneva and as Country Representative for Syria, Nepal, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.

In Syria, she provided strategic leadership to one of the largest protection crises on the global stage – successfully scaling up programmes through an integrated package of high impact interventions in health, nutrition, water and sanitation, education and child protection – increasing the reach of UNICEF’s work to the most vulnerable children including in besieged and hard-to-reach areas.

As UNICEF chief in Nepal, she pioneered strategic programmes for scaling up sanitation, adolescents and multisectoral nutrition programmes, establishing strategic new alliances resulting in the government adopting national action plans. She has also led humanitarian programmes in Burundi and Haiti, and managed cross border humanitarian operations to Afghanistan and Iraq among other areas and provided technical support to programmes in the North Caucasus, Kosovo, Macedonia, Georgia, Tajikistan and Bosnia.

A national of Egypt, Ms Singer holds a Master’s degree in Political Sociology and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the American University in Cairo, Egypt. She also holds a diploma in “Planning and Management of Decentralized Development Projects” from Bradford University in the United Kingdom.

Ms Singer has engaged in academia and research in political sociology and international relations at the American University of Cairo and at the Sadat’s Academy for Management Sciences, Faculty of Political Science of Cairo University. She is the author and co-author of two publications on social change in the Middle East.

As exclusively reported by the Daily Mirror on last Tuesday (13) the Election Commission (EC) will issue the gazette notification calling nominations for the Local Government (LG) polls after the Christmas and on or before the 30th December, Chairman of the EC,S.G.Punchihewa reiterated yesterday.

The nominations will be accepted by district returning officers from registered political parties and independent groups on the 14th day from the announcement of nominations until 12.00 noon the following say.

The section 26 of the Local Authorities Elections Ordinance says that the Local government polls have to be held between five weeks to seven weeks after the closure of tendering nominations. The nominations will be accepted by district returning officers from registered political parties and independent groups on the 14th day of notice of nominations until 12.00 noon the following day.

Thus, the election to elect 8,301 members for 24 Municipal Councils, 41 Urban Councils and 275 Pradeshiya Sabhas except the Elpitiya Pradeshiya Sabha can be expected in late February, 2023.

Punchihewa told Daily Mirror last morning that the EC would meet tomorrow (20) to take a final decision on the date to issue the gazette.

“It will definitely be between 26th and 30th December. The Election Commission expects to announce the exact date of releasing the gazette to the media after we decided the date to issue the gazette notification calling nominations for local government election,” Punchihewa stressed.

Commenting on speculations circulating in the mainstream and social media to the effect that requests to the government and attempts have been made by various politicians and political parties to postpone the LG polls, Punchihewa emphasized that only the Supreme Court and the Legislature have the constitutional authority to postpone the election.

The tenure of 340 LG bodies has already been extended by one year up to March 20th next year by the government. The government must hold LG polls and constitute 340 LG bodies by March 19, 2023. No one can extend the term of office of LG bodies under the law as election can be extended only once.

Minister of Justice Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe says the government is not interfering in the processes of the National Election Commission.

Speaking to media in Kandy, Minister Rajapakshe said the Election Commission is an independent body and is vested with full powers to conduct elections.

The Minister noted that the Members of Commission have taken preliminary steps to conduct the Local Authorities Election.

He assured that the government is not interfering in its process.

Meanwhile, the National Election Commission is scheduled to convene tomorrow (20).

NewsRadio has learnt that a decision on the date of the Local Authorities Election and the dates to accept nominations for the election is expected to be taken at the meeting.

The 2023 Local Authorities Election is scheduled to be held based on the certified 2022 electoral register.

A key upcountry Tamil party is now courting the President’s International Climate Advisor Eric Solheim who previously worked as the peace facilitator between the government and the LTTE to play a role in achieving a lasting solution to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka .

Solheim who was in Sri Lanka met with Tamil Progressive Alliance (TPA) leader MP Mano Ganeshan last week.

Ganeshan is reported to have requested Solheim to use his ‘experience and expertise ‘ to achieve a lasting solution to the political question in an undivided Sri Lanka. He told Solheim that all made mistakes and the last peace process failed.

“ Some parties, if not all parties, are responsible for it,” Ganeshan said.

He, as the leader of the upcountry Tamil party, said the Indian origin Tamil community had emerged as a national community of Sri Lanka.

Ganeshan briefed Solheim about the recent deliberations of the latest All Party Conference.

“ I’m here to help the president on the Green Climate subject. I have also taken note of the Hill Country Tamil community and the plight of the segment within the plantations. The international community needs to take note of these people while assisting SriLanka,” Solheim had said as quoted by Ganeshan.