Muslims MPs to take back portfolios

• To take oaths when President returns on Saturday 
• Prime Minister informed of decision
• Will take back portfolios they held before resignations in early June
• Agrees to back MMDA amendments to increase marriage age to 18 for Muslim women

Muslim ministers, State and Deputy Ministers, who resigned from their posts en mass in early June, decided to accept their ministerial portfolios again yesterday.

The group of MPs, including Rauff Hakeem, Rishad Bathiudeen, M.H.A. Haleem, and A.H.M. Fowzie, will take their oaths when President Maithripala Sirisena returns to the country on Saturday. They have informed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe of their decision, Daily FT learns. The Muslim MPs are expected to be sworn into the same portfolios they held prior to their resignations. 

The MPs resigned over allegations that some of them had links to the group behind the Easter Sunday attacks. 

The MPs decided on Thursday that since a month has passed after their resignations, no such allegations have proven to be true, and hence decided to take back their portfolios.  

The other MPs who will be reappointed are State Ministers Faizal Cassim, H. M. M. Harees, Ameer Ali Shihabdeen, Seyed Ali Zahir Moulana, and Deputy Minister Abdullah Mahrooff. 

Meanwhile, the MPs had also agreed to support amendments to the Muslim Marriages and Divorce Act to increase minimum age for Muslim women to 18 years. At the meeting, the Parliamentarians also agreed to allow the appointment of women to head Qazi courts.