Speaker cautions against creating clash between Executive and Legislature

By Skandha Gunasekara

The Speaker of Parliament yesterday appealed to the House not to cause friction between the Executive and the Legislature.

“I have made the request of the President to provide a copy of the report to Parliament. The President has informed us through the Presidential Secretariat that he will send copies in a week. Please don’t cause problems between the President and me,” Speaker Karu Jayasuriya stated in Parliament.

The Speaker made these remarks in response to the Opposition’s demand that he obtain the bond report from a public official, such as the Secretary to the President, and table it in Parliament. 

Reading out the letter sent to him by Secretary to the President Austin Fernando, the Speaker said that the President had instructed that 24 copies of the bond report be sent to Parliament by 17 January.

Furthermore, the letter stated that upon the advice of the Attorney General, copies of the bond report had been sent to Central Bank Governor Indrajit Coomaraswamy and Bribery Commission Director General Sarath Jayamanne last morning to implement the legal recommendations of the report. 

Additionally, the letter stated that the Presidential Secretariat did not have the 34 PRECIFAC reports requested by Parliament. The Presidential Secretariat had informed the Speaker that copies of the report would be obtained from the PRECIFAC office and sent to Parliament. 

The Speaker then said that along with his verbal request, the Secretary to the Leader of the House had also written to the President asking for a copy of the bond report.  He assured the House that he would be meeting with both the Secretary to the President and the Attorney General after sittings concluded to discuss the matter. 

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said that he would also meet with the Attorney General and invited party leaders to join the meeting. The Premier said that he would meet President Maithripala Sirisena in the evening to discuss the opinions shared in Parliament and urge him to present the report to the House as soon as possible. 

“Since I am also a character in the entire saga, I too am interested in knowing the content of the report. Parliament has done everything in its capacity over the bond issue,” he added.