National Audit Bill is to be passed soon
The National Audit Bill has not been shelved under any circumstances and the government has given top priority in passing the bill. Just like the Right to Information Bill and the Missing Persons Act which were also controversial, the National Audit Bill too is likely to be passed soon, said Minister of Public Enterprises Development Kabir Hashim during a Colombo discussion on the manifestoes of the two major political parties – the United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP).
The discussion also on issues that affect the public at large saw the involvement of Agriculture Minister Duminda Dissanayake and MP M.A. Sumanthiran, in an event organised by Verite Research, a private interdisciplinary think tank in Colombo.
Mr. Hashim said that there are key issues such as re-structuring state enterprises that come under his ministry and the National Audit Bill was an important one.
However he attributed the delay in passing this bill due to various constraints and obstacles facing the government. He said the government finds it difficult to keep to a timeframe owing to various objections and representations made by the civil society and the delays they encounter at the Attorney General’s and other government departments.
“There are also various Public Service Administraive and Financial Regulations that have further aggravated the problem,” he said.
Minister Dissanayake said he welcomed the open discussions on election manifestoes of the two major political parties due to the environment created by the good governance policies. On the National Audit Bill, he said the matter was discussed at a recent Cabinet meeting to expedite the matter. “When expediting the bill we want to see that it was done properly.”
He said the bill was a “necessary requirement although many political parties had reservations about it at the outset”. Empowering the bill with extra powers that exceeds all other laws could have a negative impact that can impede the job performance of public servants. The revised version has now been forwarded to the Attorney General’s Department for an opinion on whether it is inconsistent or not with the Constitution.
JVP MP Vijitha Herath, providing his views on the bill, said it had surfaced before the Parliamentary General Elections where an election pledge was made in 2015 that the Audit Bill would be passed following the setting up of an Independent Audit Commission.
“Three years have lapsed but the National Audit Bill has not been presented in parliament so far,” he said adding there is no legal validity in setting up of an Independent Audit Commission without the bill being passed.
Opposition MP M.A. Sumanthiran said while the bill was not a controversial one and most of the MP’S were not against it, the passage of the bill was delayed due to the lethargy shown by parliamentarians.