News
Paranagama Commission hands over incomplete report as term ends
The Presidential Commission to Investigate Complaints Regarding Missing Persons wound up its activities by handing over a 48-page report to President’s Secretary P.B.Abeykoon on Friday. Its activities will now be taken over by the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) Commission which is to be set up soon.
Commission Chairman Maxwell Paranagama who handed over the report said the Commission could not complete investigations on all the complaints as its term ended and hence a report of what had been concluded was handed over.
The reports and all materials collected by the Paranagama Commission and other such commissions will now be handed over to the Office of Missing Persons, the Bill to set up which was approved by Parliament on Thursday.
The Bill enables the OMP to use data collected previously by other institutions,
organisations, Government departments and commissions of inquiry and Special Presidential Commissions of Inquiry to be centralised into a database to be established under the new law.
The OMP can also initiate an inquiry or investigation into the whereabouts and/or circumstances of disappearance of a missing person pursuant to a complaint made to the OMP or on the basis of information received from previously established Commissions of Inquiry, Commissions on missing persons or Commissions which have inquired into allegations relating to disappearances or missing persons.
The Commission was established on August 15, 2013 by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Its other members were Mrs. Mano Ramanathan and Mrs. Suranjana Vidyaratne and its term was extended several times by President Maithripala Sirisena too.
Meanwhile several amendments were moved to the OMP Bill before it was passed in Parliament on Thursday.
The OMP which was to have the power to raise its own funds directly in order to achieve its mandate, including obtaining any grants, gifts or endowments from the national or international community will have to do so now with the concurrence of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs while any technical support and training (forensic or otherwise) which it obtains too will have to be done in consultation with the MFA, according to the amendments.