Govt. and TNA conspired to postpone Bond debate: JO

Thursday, 22 February 2018 00:20 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Joint Opposition yesterday claimed that the Government had schemed with the TNA, to avoid the continuation of the debate on the Bond report.

Joint Opposition MP Vasudeva Nanayakkara charged that the TNA had objected to holding the debate on the Bond Commission and the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Serious Acts of Fraud, Corruption and Abuse of Power, State Resources and Privileges (PRECIFAC) reports on Tuesday (20 February), asserting that the relevant translations were unavailable, but had not made such objections when the debate commenced.

The MP raised this issue in objection to the decision taken by the House to indefinitely postpone the debate on the Bond and PRECIFAC reports.

“TNA MP M A Sumanthiran objected when I rose to speak at the time the debate was called for on Tuesday, but his party was silent on 6 February, when we started the debate. They did not raise objections on the absence of the Tamil translation of the report of special presidential commission on serious crimes. Therefore it was a sly attempt by the TNA and the government to avoid the debate,” Nanayakkara said.

In response, TNA MP M A Sumanthiran noted that they had agreed to participate in the debate on 6 February on the understanding that the translations would be made available for the remainder of the debate.

“It is true that we took part in the debate on 6 February, but it was only because we wanted to have the debate early, and had reached an agreement that the Tamil and English translations would be made available for the remainder of the debate,” he said, adding that it had been several weeks since the first day of the debate, but still no translations had been given to the MPs. At this point, Speaker Karu Jayasuriya pointed out that he had not ordered the postponement of the debate. “The decision to postpone the debate was taken by the House and not me. The Tamil and English versions of the PRECIFAC report will take time as the report is some 8000 odd pages and will take some time.”