Bond report debate and Provincial Council delimitation report submission postponed indefinitely

By Skandha Gunasekara

The continuation debate on the report of the Central Bank bond scam, as well as the presenting of the Delimitation report for the Provincial Council election, which were both part of Parliament’s agenda for the week, have been postponed indefinitely.

Joint Opposition Parliamentary group leader MP Dinesh Gunawardena told the Daily FT that the decision to postpone the debates on these two key reports was taken at the Party Leaders’ meeting, chaired by Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, held yesterday. 

“The continuation of the debate on the Central Bank Bond scam report was scheduled to be taken up in Parliament on Friday (23 March) but the Speaker informed us that the Tamil and English translations of the report were still not ready. The Speaker has now promised to have the translation ready for debate on two occasions and both times the promises were broken. Since February these reports are being translated,” MP Gunawardena said.

MP Gunawardena said that during the Party Leaders meeting, the Government had also requested that the Delimitation report on Provincial Councils, which needs the approval of Parliament in order to announce the much awaited Provincial Council elections, be presented to Parliament on a later date. “It is the intention of the Government to postpone presenting the Delimitation report which was to be presented to Parliament on Thursday (22 March). The Speaker is to make an announcement in this regard on Tuesday.”

In addition, MP Gunawardena said that the No-Confidence motion of the Joint Opposition against Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe would be presented to Parliament this week, as they have garnered the support of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party as well.

“The No-confidence motion is signing up as we speak. It states that we have lost confidence in the Prime Minster for a range of reasons, including the Central Bank Bond scam and his involvement in appointing and defending the then Governor of the Central Bank Arjun Mahendran, as well the financial and economic mismanagement of the country for which the Prime Minister is to blame. We will be presenting the motion to the Speaker very soon. I don’t know about the position of the President, but we have the support of the other SLFP members,” MP Gunawardena said.