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Chaotic colour
to a drab budget The lapse by
the Opposition was brought to the notice of the House by Chief Government
Whip Mahinda Samarasinghe soon after the Budget was passed by a
majority of 36 votes with the TNA members voting with the UNF government.
The seven SLMC MPs also ended their month and a half boycott of
Parliament and voted in support of the Budget. Soon after
the vote was taken, Mr. Samarasinghe told the House that amendments
in respect of the committee stage debates which should have been
handed over by November 9, by the Opposition had not been done and
hence no debate could take place as stipulated in Standing Orders
of Parliament. This effectively
meant the Budget debate could have concluded soon after the vote.
However Mr. Samarasinghe's remarks led to an uproar in the House
with Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapakse saying he would take full
responsibility for the oversight and asked the government to settle
the matter in a manner satisfactory to both sides. Hence at the
Party leaders meeting held on Friday morning, the government decided
to suspend standing orders and allow the debate to go on. Prime
Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said the government's decision to
salvage the committee stage of the Budget was because Parliament
should not be sidelined. "Some will say this is like cutting
the nose to spite the face but Parliament business must go on even
if the opportunity is used to sling mud at the government,"
the Premier said. Much of the government members accusation for the lapse was directed at the Chief Opposition Whip Mangala Samaraweera. This is the ineffective, callous attitude he has shown towards Parliament," Parliamentary affairs Minister A.H.M. Azwar charged. Prior to the
vote, Finance Minister K.N.Choksy used the occasion to clarify some
of the Budget proposals he had presented when he made his opening
speech on November 6. He also responded to his critics namely former
Finance Minister Ronnie De Mel who had called his budget colourless.
There was also
plenty of JVP bashing by government members who were warning of
a third JVP-led insurrection with the death of a student from the
Sri Jayawardenepura University being made the focal point to attack
them. But the accusations did little to silence the JVP members and they managed to cause enough dissent in the House which led to sittings being suspended twice on Tuesday and two government legislators being asked to leave the Chamber by the Speaker. The drama began
when JVP Parliamentarian Wimal Weerawansa rose to make a statement
regarding the peace talks held in Thailand and to query how the
government can talk to an organisation whose leader has been handed
a 200 year sentence by a court and in whose name an open arrest
warrant has been issued. As members
are required to give prior notice of a matter they wish to raise
to the Minister under whose purview the subject comes, several government
members asked whether this had been done. Although the JVP MP said
the statement had been sent to the Prime Minister's office, it transpired
that they had not received it. However, in the midst of the government
protests, the Speaker informed the House that he had spoken to the
Premier and he had asked that Mr.Weerawansa be allowed to make the
statement. However this
did not settle the matter as government members insisted this was
a violation of standing orders and the Speaker had to suspend sittings
for five minutes to quieten things up. Once the House resumed, government
members continued to thump their tables not allowing Mr. Weerawansa
to make the statement. It was at this
point that TNA member Nadarajah Raviraj raised another point of
order saying that no member could refer to a pending court ruling
as it was sub judice. "An appeal can be filed within 30 days
of the judgment being given. Every citizen has the right to appeal
and till then no decision is final," he declared. However, there
was no clear ruling from the Speaker whether the matter could be
interpreted as sub judice as in this instance no appeal had been
filed at the time the JVP member raised the matter. The Speaker
said Mr. Weerawansa could finish making the statement and he would
omit from Hansard if he felt anything he said had violated standing
orders. This led to
further commotion and the speaker named the government MPs T. Maheswarana
and Olitha Premathiratne and asked them to leave the chamber. He
had to then suspend sittings for a further fifteen minutes to control
the unruly situation. After the second break, the JVP MP managed
to read through his statement despite the continued disturbances
by government MPs. "This
is an attempt at making petty political gains. Isn't it an achievement
that people who were carrying guns and bombs in their hands are
now talking of development," Leader of the House W.J.M. Lokubandara
queried. He assured
the House that Parliament would not act in secrecy with regards
to the peace process and any final decision would be put to parliament
for a two third majority vote and put to the people at a referendum. A.L.M. Athaullah,
Digamadulla district SLMCer who led the boycott of Parliament for
a month and a half said they were satisfied with the assurance given
by the Prime Minister that rights of the Muslims would be safeguard. However he
insisted that if there is a permanent merger of the north and east,
the Muslims will need a separate administrative district. "The
north-east was temporally merged under the Indo-Lanka accord of
1987. What is its status today? Is the accord still valid?"
he queried. Nadaraja Mathanrajah,
the Jaffna district EPDP MP was one of the lone critics of the LTTE
among the Tamil MPs. The EPDP legislator said that the organisation
had even robbed the people of their right to dream. "You cannot
put money in the bank the LTTE finds out how much you have. You
cannot even dream. They find out what you are dreaming about,"
he said. His views were in total contrast to those of M.S. Senathirajah, TNA Jaffna distract MP, who said that members of the military needed to be tried for war crimes as was done after the Second World War. However he was silent on what punishment should be meted out against LTTE members who were responsible for terrorists acts. |
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Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
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