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After numerous requests by MPs, the Presidential Secretariat on Tuesday handed over to Parliament previously withheld volumes of evidence in the final report of the Presidential Commission appointed to investigate the Easter Sunday attacks on April 21 2019.

The 88 volumes containing evidence recorded from witnesses were handed over to Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena by Harigupta Rohanadeera, who is in charge of legal affairs at the Presidential Secretariat. The Presidential Secretariat said these volumes were not released earlier due to “legal reasons.”

A single copy of each volume has now been added to the Parliament Library set aside for the exclusive use of MPs. Yet, MPs who want to study previously unreleased sections of the report have been confronted with a mountain of paperwork. The volumes in total comprise more than 70, 000 pages. After they were tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) Parliamentarian Harin Fernando posted a video on Twitter showing a large number of volumes on the floor and in carts at the Parliament Library. Mr Fernando was among several MPs from both the Government and Opposition who had called on the Speaker to make a soft copy of all the volumes available to MPs.

Ramanathan brings huge crowd to SLFP rally in Karaveddy; Dayasiri gets people to dance by singing famous Tamil song

Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) senior leaders were in Jaffna last Sunday to attend the party’s Jaffna district conference which saw several thousand party supporters taking part at Collins grounds in Karaveddy.

The conference was organised by its district organiser Parliamentarian Angajan Ramanathan, who made electoral history at the last parliamentary elections where he secured the most preferential votes in the Jaffna electoral district, pushing Tamil nationalists behind. He became the sole MP representing the party. A significant number of attendees were from Udupitty, which was the electoral seat he won.

Party leader, former President Maithripala Sirisena was the chief guest at the conference along with other senior party stalwarts.

The conference raised some eyebrows within Tamil nationalistic circles for two reasons: one, the ability of a national party which was on the decline in recent years in the South to mobilise a large crowd and second, a potential shift in the Tamil nationalist vote bank.

As it is customary when mobilising political party meetings in the country, party supporters were brought in buses from various parts of the district.

The highlight of the event was the music programme organised at the end of the conference. For many, it was the first live music programme they attended after pandemic lockdowns. Therefore, spirits were high for some in the audience.

Then SLFP General Secretary Dayasiri Jayasekera, State Minister of Batik, Handloom and Local Apparel Products, stepped forward to show off his singing skills. He chose to sing an A. R. Rahman record hit, a Tamil song titled “Thamizha Thamizha Naalai nam naalae” from the superhit movie ‘Roja’.

The song immediately took the audience by surprise and many, particularly youth, started singing in chorus. On the following day, the performance went viral on social media platforms.

A family of four came with two grown children to attend the meeting from far away. One of the young ones was heard saying “This was fun. We had a great time after years,” as they prepared to return home.

Priyani: Few bad eggs at RRISL but others delighted

Rubber Research Institute of Sri Lanka’s (RRISL) Deputy Director Priyani Senevirathna, who has Cabinet approval for the extension of her service, has drawn reference to last week’s item which appeared in this column under the headline ‘Job stretch for retiring lady officer creates dispute at state rubber body.’ The item referred to a dispute that has risen over the extension of service after retirement.

Dr. Senevirathna admits she was not named in the item, and also admits that she had retired, but adds she missed the opportunity of working until the age of 62 by 13 days keeping with the decision to extend the compulsory retirement age of semi-government sector employees to 62 years. She says she was compelled to submit a request for service extension bypassing the Board due to various injustices against her by the Board, which she calls her “Oppressor.”

She said “All requests for service extensions are considered on a case-by-case basis. The RRISL suffers a huge dearth of research officers. Although the approved cadre is 80, only 27 officers are at work by now.” She said no one else at RRISL has contributed more than her, when it comes to publications.

“I have immensely supported to make sure the institute publications are up dated including the website.”

She said despite a “few bad eggs” at the RRISL, a majority of the staff are “delighted” to have her back in service.

Jamis Banda says: “Dr. Senevirathna confirms there was a dispute about granting of an extension to her post. The issue has been raised as there were four other officers who believe they are eligible for the post though the Cabinet paper says there were no qualified people in the institute for the post.”

Foreign Ministry refers to seashells, like she sells seashells on the sea shore

Those checking for decisions taken by the Cabinet at its Monday meeting would have been rather surprised to learn that it had granted approval to award scholarships to two officer cadets in the armed forces of the “Republic of Seashells” to enroll at the Sir John Kotelawala Defence University.

The Foreign Affairs Ministry has been informed by the “High Commissioner of the Republic of Seashells” of their interest in joining the scholarship programme awarded by the university to foreign students, the Government Information Department said in the media release detailing Cabinet decisions.

Accordingly, the Cabinet of ministers approved the proposal submitted by the President as Defence Minister to enroll the two officer cadets from the “Republic of Seashells” in the university’s scholarship programme, it said.

Ukraine invasion: Lanka ticking time bomb and may blast into bankruptcy

As one senior energy expert said during a public talk recently on the ongoing power outages, what the country is going through is not a fuel crisis but a dollar crisis.

Still, the dollar is pegged officially by the Central Bank at Rs 203 while just this week in the so-called Pettah rate or black market rate, it surpassed Rs 260. Many economists urged the Government and the Central Bank of Sri Lanka to allow the USD to free fall against the Rupee, rather than artificially keeping it at the CBSL rate. Both CBSL Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal and other senior Government officials are determined not to allow that.

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the fuel crisis and power outages caused a downturn of the Colombo Stock Exchange, wiping out billions of rupees within minutes. Both indexes went down significantly this week, forcing trading activities to be halted at least four times.

A market analyst said; “It’s time for market correction and the country is a ticking bomb of being declared bankrupt for its increasing inability to import any essential items or fuel if the rates are not adjusted soon.”

Detractors see new commission as media circus for possible polls

The Special Presidential Commission of Inquiry Examining, Information Gathering, Investigating, Reporting the Findings and Providing Recommendations on the Tasks Undertaken by the Anti-Corruption Committee and its Secretariat is due to begin hearing evidence tomorrow.

The Commission sittings will be held at the hall situated on the second floor of Block 5 of the BMICH. It has already sent out letters to a host of top Government officials who held senior positions in the Yahapalana Government.

An attempt was also made to record a statement from former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe this week. When the team called over at Mr Wickremesinghe’s residence he was preparing to leave for the Parliamentary sessions. The team was turned away. Any obstruction of an MP on his way to Parliament is a breach of Parliamentary Privilege.

Supporters of the President’s move to establish this new Commission insist that it would give officials who were mentioned in the final report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Political Victimisation over activities of the Anti-Corruption Committee and its Secretariat–an opportunity to come clean about functions of the controversial Committee and its Secretariat. Detractors see yet another attempt by the Government to create a media circus in the run up to a possible election in the coming months.

State Minister pours cold water on oxygen remarks

Certain embarrassing incidents involving politicians tend to stick to them throughout their political careers. For State Minister Sanath Nishantha, it is the infamous incident from two years ago where he got into an argument with a female Forest Department officer over an alleged illegal clearing of a section of mangrove forest. As the argument became heated and the Forest officer spoke of the importance of that particular ecosystem as an oxygen resource, one man in attendance shouted “Oxygen Kannada?” (Are we to eat oxygen?) Though State Minister Nishantha never uttered the words, they have since stuck to his name, so much so that people sometimes refer to him as “Oxygen.”

This was the very incident that State Minister Nimal Lanza used to dismiss the attacks made by State Minister Nishantha, with whom he has been engaged in a public spat. Last week, an audio recording surfaced of Mr Nishantha berating Mr Lanza over the phone, accusing him of obstructing road development work done by him in his electorate while giving free rein to politicians from the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP).

“I will hold a media conference and smash you to pieces (kudu pattam wenna gahanawa),” State Minister Nishantha says in the recording.

Mr Lanza meanwhile, has been unhappy with the way he has been treated in his post for some time and the tirade by mr Nishantha prompted him to clear out his office at the ministry and ask his personal staff to vacate the premises. On Wednesday, he spoke about the spat in Parliament, disclosing that he had forwarded a letter to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa detailing four specific matters that he wants addressed if he is to stay in his post.

“I have stayed silent until now but I too can hit back if I want to,” Mr Lanza said. However, he claimed he was holding himself back because he knows the way the people perceive the person who attacked him.

“He is someone who said people don’t need oxygen to survive,” Mr Lanza scoffed, without naming Mr Nishantha.   State Minister Nishantha immediately went to the media to insist it was not him who uttered those words. He claimed the man who said them was a Lanza supporter that had been “planted” at the meeting as part of a conspiracy hatched by the latter with several other politicians to discredit him during the 2020 parliamentary election. But he has never been able to shake off the incident and likely never would, Mr Nishantha would.

Harin brings battery powered torches to go to the washroom in Parliament

Amidst a crippling energy crisis, the antics of people’s representatives in Parliament continue to reach the heights of absurdity. On Thursday MPs from the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) staged a protest over the daily power blackouts. They held up placards condemning the Government’s handling of the crisis and demanded that the Government should resign and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa should also go with it. They also brought small battery powered torches into the Chamber to highlight the blackout.

The bringing of the torches caused tempers to flare. Leader of the House Minister Dinesh Gunawardena raised issue, telling the Speaker that a heated argument had broken out between Police and SJB MPs after several prohibited items an MP was bringing into the Chamber were discovered. He claimed that contents of such items could be subjected to a chemical reaction when mixed with other elements and posed a danger to the entire complex.

SJB Parliamentarian Harin Fernando acknowledged that the incident involved the Police finding three torches in his possession.

“I brought the torches because of the power cuts. It’s not wrong to bring them. How can I go to the toilet if the power goes out?” he asked.

The excuse is ludicrous; Parliament is one of the few places in the country that is assured of uninterrupted power no matter what happens. Even in the unlikely event that power fails, the backup generators will kick in instantly.

Of course, Mr Gunawardena raising concerns over MPs bringing prohibited items to the Chamber is rather rich. It was MPs from his group, then in the Opposition, who smuggled chilli powder into the Chamber and threw it in the faces of Parliament’s Police officers during the disgraceful events witnessed inside the Chamber at the height of the 2018 Constitutional Coup.