Dr. Harsha Suranga Fernando, a retired consultant community physician, was sworn in as Governor of the Central Province before President Anura Kumara Dissanayake at the Presidential Secretariat on Wednesday.
The ceremony was held in the presence of officials, the President’s Media Division said.
A public health career
Fernando obtained his MBBS from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Peradeniya and has more than 26 years of service in the public health sector, according to Ada Derana. He has worked as a public health specialist in the Kandy, Matale and Kegalle districts — the Daily Mirror described his most recent domestic post as Consultant Community Physician for the Kandy District.
His international work includes research affiliated with the Monash Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health in Australia, and service as an immunisation specialist for the World Health Organization in Timor-Leste and Indonesia.
The appointment places a career health administrator rather than a party figure at the head of the province, a pattern the government has followed in several gubernatorial appointments since taking office.
Filling a post vacant since July
The governorship had been open since mid-July, when Central Province Governor Abeykoon resigned.
The province Fernando inherits has been under sustained strain in recent days. Heavy rain across the hill country has driven a run of emergencies in the Kandy and Nuwara Eliya districts, including school closures across both districts, the Upper Kotmale spill and displacement at Gampola, and a fatal earth collapse at Polpitiya. A minor flood warning for the Mahaweli basin remained in force on Wednesday.
Under Sri Lanka’s provincial system the Governor is appointed by the President and represents the centre in the province, exercising executive authority in the absence of an elected provincial council. Provincial councils across the country have stood dissolved for several years pending elections.
Sources: Ada Derana, Daily Mirror.
