Grama Niladhari ought to get his basics right!
Recently, my daughter wanted to obtain a certification of her new residency/tenancy at the Armour Street Flats, Colombo 12, from the Grama Niladhari in charge of the New Bazaar, whose office incidentally is located in another block of the same building.
The document was one of the several documents required by the CEB to change the existing name in the electricity bill to her name, being the present owner.
She had with her, all the relevant documents – the original deed transferred in her name, her National Identity Card, the current electricity bill, (which bore the name of the very first owner), CMC’s annual assessment tax receipts, the CEB’s application form duly completed, etc.
My daughter, is the 4th owner of this house but the previous owners had occupied the said premises without bothering himself to change the name in the electricity bill. ie the bill continued to remain in favour of the first owner.
In order to issue the certification, the GN has insisted that we obtain a letter from the very first owner. or else, a letter from the NHDA to say that the Authority does not have any objection whatsoever.
When my daughter produced the deed of the house, he still refused to certify saying that even he too can a produce a deed for my daughter’s house in his name!!! and so on.
He has also told her that there could be an objection from the first owner (when he was no more the owner as the ownership of the above house has changed so many times) for which he, the Grama Niladhari will be accountable.
So, we made a trip with all the documents the following day to the NHDA and a lady officer at this office who examined the deed told us that they need not issue any letter as our deed has been duly registered at the land registry and that would suffice.
We were just driven from pillar to post to get the certificate of tenancy. Is this what we are to expect from a GN?
Over to the relevant Ministry in charge, which ought to properly guide the GN on their functions as otherwise people will end up a nervous wreck!
Mohamed Zahran
Colombo 14
Murders galore: Where do ammunitions come from?
An open letter to H.E. President, Hon. Prime Minister, IGP and all law enforcement officers
As a law abiding citizen of this country, I, and many others of the same ilk are alarmed at the many contract murders that are being committed by underworld killers, almost on a daily basis, with impunity.
All these murders are being committed using modern automatic weapons. While a weapon can be used many times over, the ammunition or bullets for these weapons can be used only once. But these killers appear to have an unlimited supply of these ammunition, some of which appear to be new, as shown on TV. The question that has to be asked is how these killers obtain the ammunition so easily?
Have the law enforcement officers tried to find out how and from where the ammunition gets into the hands of these killers? Why don’t the law enforcement officers try to stop the supply? All they seem to do is to carry out investigations whenever a murder is committed to detect the killers. Why won’t the intelligence agencies carry out covert investigations to find out how these underworld gangsters obtain these supplies of ammunition and then stop the supply at the point of origin?
Kindly provide us with an answer to this puzzle, please.
A scared citizen
Make CMC rates payable online
The utility payments such as, water bills (from NWSDB), electricity bills (from both CEB and LECO), and telephone bills (from SLT and other Mobile operators) could be easily settled at any time convenient to the consumer, through CDM/ATM/Kiosks installed at leading banks. This facility, both card and cardless transactions, is time saving as you don’t have to take a token and await your turn / wait in a queue to settle these bills.
This is to suggest that the Colombo Municipal Council should collaborate with banks so that the Property tax (rates) also could be paid through the above machines which is operative 24/7 and are user friendly. Otherwise, the Rate payers have to visit the Municipality to settle the Assessment Rates which is most time consuming, with the heavy traffic on the roads, nowadays.
Concerned ratepayer
Colombo