A
Malay pickle
Tourism Minister Anura Bandaranaike compared the mixing of debates
of different ministries during the committee stage of the Budget
to a "Malay pickle" quite correctly. The debate on the
various ministries are decided by the office of the Leader of the
Opposition but the way the times for the ministries have been allocated,
the debates have become one big soup with many speakers having to
talk on so many issues in a very short time.
For
instance, on Thursday afternoon the Ministries of Education, Skills
Development, Vocational and Technical Education, Housing and Construction
Industry and Eastern Province Education and Irrigation Development
and Urban Development and Water Supply were taken for debate all
together while on Friday afternoon the debate on the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, Tourism, Industry and Investment Promotion and
Small and Rural Industries were taken up at the same time. So there
was more confusion than clarity with neither the members who wished
to address issues in each of the ministries being able to make their
point nor the Ministers in charge of the ministries able to enlighten
Parliament on their plans of action for the coming year. Maybe next
year the Opposition Leader's office will better schedule the budget
debates.
State
media bosses missing
The Committee stage debate of the Ministry of Information
and Media was held on Wednesday afternoon but conspicuous by their
absence were the Rupavahini Corporation Chairman M.M. Zuhair, its
Director General Nishantha Ranatunga as well as the ITN Chairman
Newton Gunaratne. The former was in Libya on a personal trip while
the latter two were in Singapore. Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera
did not take kindly to their absence and made his feelings known
to the other officials present, that too not in the kindest of words.
The
wrong message?
Speaking on the Media Ministry's votes UPFA MP Wimal Weerawansa
said state run television needed to show more programmes depicting
local heroes. He said nowadays children were influenced too much
by Western heroes such as Spiderman and Superman. But with some
politicians self-anointing themselves as present day “Dutugemunus”,
trying to get children to accept a historical figure such as Dutugemunu
as a hero could very well send them the wrong message. |
