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House website not in order
The new Sri Lanka Parliament website launched last Friday with much fanfare by Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake is incomplete and full of spelling and grammatical errors.

The Government’s primer information technology agency, the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka through its e-Sri Lanka project undertook the website as a pilot project. But before its formal launch in the presence of Speaker W.J.M. Lokubandara, MPs and senior officials, no one seems to have checked the glaring mistakes, particularly in the “Directory of Members” section.

Even though the wholly government-owned ICTA boasts of being the single apex body involved in ICT policy and direction for the nation, the new Parliament web site launched as part of its modernization programme has failed to provide the basic details of the 225 parliamentarians.

The civil status of two ministers, namely Ferial Ashraff and Dinesh Gunawardena have been stated as “Widows” while the marital status of JHU Buddhist monks are given as “Single.” The profession of CWC MP Mutu Sivalingam has been given as “Trade Unions” while JVP MP Chandrasena Wijesinghe’s has been given as “Ploitics (fulltime)”. TNA Parliamentarian S. Sivajilingam’s religion has been mentioned as ‘Muslim’ though he is a Hindu.
The main aim of the directory is to provide the public with contact particulars to communicate with the members. But there are no telephone numbers or e-mail addresses, which mean an elector should either visit them at home, as no office addresses are given or write to them.

The project was launched with the assistance of the World Bank and undertaken by Affno (Pvt) Ltd. with guidance of a Committee headed by the Deputy Secretary General of Parliament and comprising technical experts from parliament, ICAC and Affno, announces the website, www.parliament.lk.

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