colombo Government and politics

Government and politics
The Neo-baroque style Old Parliament Building, which is now the Presidential Secretariat
The Colombo City Town Hall in Cinnamon Gardens houses the Town Council and other municipal offices

[edit] Local Government

Colombo is a charter city, with a Mayor Council form of government. Colombo's mayor and the council members are elected through local government elections held once in five years. For the past 50 years the city had been ruled by the United National Party (UNP), a right leaning party, whose business friendly policies resonate with the population of Colombo. However the UNP nomination list for the 2006 Municipal elections was rejected,[23] and an Independent Group supported by the UNP won the elections.[24] Uvais Mohamed Imitiyas was subsequently appointed Mayor of Colombo.[25]

The city government provides sewer, road management and waste management services, in case of water, electricity and telephone utility services the council liaises with the water supply and drainage board, the Ceylon electricity board and telephone service providers.

Official Vision and mission

Vision:
“ Colombo being a model city in Asia, a caring organization looking after interests of citizens and users with an efficient quality service for creation of safe, healthy and wealthy life.[26] ”

Mission
“ Organization achieving excellence in providing citizen centered services to the public / customer, optimizing the use of available resources through a competent, motivated and dedicated team.[26] ”

[edit] National capital

Colombo was the capital of the coastal areas controlled by the Portuguese, Dutch and the British from the 1700s to the 1815 when the British gained control of the entire island following the Kandian convention. From then until the 1980s the national capital of the island was Colombo. During the 1980s plans were made to move the administrative capital to Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte and thus move all governmental institutions out of Colombo to make way for commercial activities. As a primary step the Parliament was moved to a new complex in Kotte and several ministries and departments were also moved. However the move was never completed. Today many governmental institutions still remain in Colombo. These include the President's House, Presidential Secretariat, Prime Minister's House (Temple Trees), Prime Minister's Office, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, Central Bank of Sri Lanka, important government ministries and departments; such as Finance (Treasury), Defence, Home affairs, Foreign affairs, Public Administration, Justice and the Military headquarters, Naval headquarters (SLNS Ranagala), Air Force headquarters (SLAF Colombo) and Police national and field force headquarters.[27][28]