Sumanthiran claims govt. has violated Constitution by spending money without parliament sanction

By Saman Indrajith

The Appropriation Bill 2020 was a cover-up for various illegal acts committed by the government during the recent past, TNA Jaffna District MP M.A. Sumanthiran said in Parliament on Thursday (12).

 Participating in the debate on the bill, the MP said: “Today we are debating a very strange Bill. It is called the Appropriation Bill for 2020, and we are debating it in the month of November 2020.”

 He said that an Appropriation Bill should have been debated and approved prior to the financial year concerned. “It is only then the executive obtains the approval of Parliament to draw from the consolidated fund, borrow and generally administer the finances of the country. Article 148 of the Constitution very clearly says that the Parliament will have full control over public finance. No tax rate or any other levy will be imposed by any local authority or any other public authority except by or under the authority of law passed by Parliament or of any existing law. So, there is no law for the financial year 2020.

“So, what can a resolution under Article 150 sub article 2 authorize? It can only authorise the drawing from the Consolidated Fund for public services only. That too is for specified public services only, as stated in Article 152. Those funds cannot be used for any developmental work.

“Now during this financial year, we have had two such resolutions passed. One covering the periods 1st Jan 2020 until 30th April 2020 passed in October last year, and another covering the period 1st Sept 2020 to 31st December 2020. Now even those two resolutions passed by this House can only be used for specified public services and not anything else.

“All of us know that this is not how finances have been handled in the country for this year. There has been a severe need to give the general public who were affected in several areas Rs. 5000 each in the month of April and May. None of those were public services. But all those expenditures were met and developmental activities carried out. All this was in violation of the very strict limitation imposed by the Constitution.

“This is a blatant violation of the Constitution by the government. We are trying to legitimise grave illegal and unconstitutional acts that have been purported in this country. The Appropriation Bill 2020 before the House today is not a covering approval; it is not ratification. It is something that can only be done legally. If something is done legally then you can ratify and grant covering approval for it. But illegal acts cannot be handled in that manner. This is the sorry state we are in today.”