By Chamodi Gunawardana

The Central Committee of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) has appointed a special committee to analyse the recommendations of six subcommittees appointed to the draft a new Constitution. 

Speaking at the SLFP’s weekly media briefing, party spokesman Minister Dilan Perera said that the committee would evaluate the recommendations to see whether they were in line with the SLFP’s policies. 

“We will not support any recommendation which is outside our party’s policy. We will prepare a final report after analysing the six reports,” he said. 

The committee includes SLFP Ministers Nimal Siripala de Silva, Susil Premajayantha, Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, Mahinda Samarasinghe, Dayasiri Jayasekara and Perera.  

The final report will be presented to President Maithripala Sirisena, the party’s Chairman, for necessary action.

The six subcommittees were to look into the areas of Fundamental Rights, the Judiciary, Law and Order, Public Finance, Public Service and Centre-Periphery Relations.Meanwhile, Minister Premajayantha said that the SLFP would always vote in favour of a Constitution which delivered a unitary solution and protected people’s rights.

However, Premajayantha implied that the SLFP would not support a recommendation which called for a federal solution. Condemning Joint Opposition MP Wimal Weerawansa’s comment that the Government’s expectation was to devolve power to local bodies under a federal system, Premajayantha said that Weerawansa wanted to create public fear over the new Constitution.

He added that it was too early to discuss the content of a new Constitution since it had not been taken up for debate in Parliament. 

Premajayantha further stated that the drafting of the proposed new Constitution would also take a final decision about the executive presidency, electoral system and devolution of power. 

Slamming Prof. G.L. Peiris’ assertion that the Government was going to fulfill the demands of Northern politicians for a federal solution, Premajayantha said that Prof. Peiris was the first person who tried to remove the word ‘unitary’ from a Constitution in 1995. 

SLFP recommends repaying loss through bond scam

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party’s (SLFP) seven-member committee, which was appointed to evaluate the Committee on Public Enterprise (COPE) report on the Central Bank bond issue, has recommended that institutions that were involved in the matter should pay back the loss suffered by the country’s economy. 

Minister Susil Premajayantha said that those involved in the loss should be held responsible for repayment. 

The SLFP’s seven-member committee, which comprised Ministers Nimal Siripala de Silva, John Seneviratne, Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, Lakshaman Yapa Abeywardena, Sarath Amunugama and Lasantha Alagiyawanna, handed over its recommendations to President Maithripala Sirisena on Tuesday.

It has presented six recommendations including appointing a special presidential commission to probe the incident but SLFP Spokesman Dilan Perera said that they could not reveal the rest of the recommendations until the Central Committee next assembled. 

Premajayantha also said that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had proposed handing over the SLFP report to the Attorney General to seek legal advice. 

“We actually don’t know what will be the next step we will take concerning our report but we think that punishment or legal action against those involved should be taken without delay.” However, they did not name any such culpable individual.