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Tuesday, 7 August 2018 00:10 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
No proposal to increase salaries of parliamentarians has been presented to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe or the Cabinet, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement yesterday.
Speaking during a meeting with United National Front (UNF) Parliamentarians, Wickremesinghe had noted that no proposal to increase salaries of Parliamentarians had been presented to him by party leaders. During a previous party leaders’ meeting, a discussion had ensued on increased office costs of Parliamentarians, during which the Prime Minister had suggested a proposal would be considered with approval from the Treasury.
However, no such proposal had been forthcoming, despite multiple meetings with party leaders.
“There was a discussion on increased office costs of Parliamentarians and a discussion on increasing salaries of lawmakers at a party leaders’ meeting several months ago. At that point I said if a reasonable proposal is presented, then it can be taken forward with the concurrence of the Treasury. Even though party leaders met several times after this, there was no further discussion on this topic,” the Prime Minister’s office said in a statement quoting Wickremesinghe.
Dismissing reports on a possible salary increase, Wickremesinghe pointed out that any salary increase would require Cabinet approval and need to be passed by Parliament. However, measures to draft out a proposal or a Cabinet paper have not been taken, he said.
When Wickremesinghe had queried Speaker Karu Jayasuriya on the issue, he had responded by saying that such a discussion had taken place at a party leaders’ meeting but no final decision had been arrived at.
“I cannot make a statement on this issue, because a proposal on it has not been presented. If a proposal is presented, then I can give my view, but at the moment there are only reports of a discussion. There is no point in giving views about a non-existent proposal,” he had told UNF Parliamentarians.
President Maithripala Sirisena also rejected any proposal to increase parliamentarian salaries over the weekend, pointing out no such proposal had been presented. Last week Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera also said he was unaware of such plans, and insisted he was personally against raising salaries.
