Nominations for the next parliamentary election are over and now we are about to elect another bunch of MPs to our parliament. Since independence we have elected thousands of MPs and most of them have ultimately betrayed us. However, it is a known fact that Sri Lanka had its most educated team in parliament when we got the independence. Now, it is totally opposite and only few educated people are elected as MPs, even with a very high literacy rate of more than 90%.

BUT, what are we doing now?

We are sending some ignorant people; they even don’t know what to discuss in the parliament or why they have been sent there.

Last year I had to witness one parliamentary session during the debate on the Construction Act. Only a few were there during the debate and so sad to mention that ONLY one or two had actually read the Act, but others were talking totally irrelevant content which was even not good for the school children who were there to visit the parliament.

NOW, it is our turn. We MUST elect suitable people for the parliament who will not betray us. In a previous editorial too, I had requested our members to do politics.  Our country is in a very miserable situation mostly because of non-engineers taking engineering decisions motivated by uplifting their personal images. Ultimately, as a whole, when the country has to face the repercussions, engineers are blamed for not doing their job.

At this crucial moment, I urge the engineering community to vote for engineers. If there are no engineers in your district list, at least vote for professionals. They will somehow allow engineers to perform their duties without influencing them to undertake unrealistic and unprofessional decisions on mega projects.

Vote for engineers and let’s have maximum number of engineers as ministers in the engineering related ministries.

Udeni P. Nawagamuwa
nawagamuwa@gmail.com