By Saman Indrajith

The President should not have prorogued Parliament and left the country, which is faced with the biggest ever economic crisis since independence, the main opposition SJB says.

Addressing the media at the Opposition Leader’s Office, in Colombo, yesterday, Chief Opposition Whip and Kandy District SJB MP Lakshman Kiriella said the President had been given powers by the Constitution to prorogue Parliament, but he should not have done so when the country was confronted with a crisis of this enormity.

“Given the severity of the crisis, the number of days of Parliament meeting should have been increased so that the MPs could discuss means and ways out of resolving this crisis. Parliament prorogation comes to us from the British Westminster tradition. During the period between 1940 and 1945 while World War II was prevailing, the British parliament was bombed 40 times by the Germans. Yet the British did not close their parliament. On some occasions during that period the British parliament met in a church nearby, because they needed to meet so often to discuss solutions for the crisis.

“When Parliament is prorogued, all committees stand dissolved except for three. Important committees including the COPE and COPA are dissolved. When the House meets again, we have to reappoint them anew and the government could delay that process too. This government has delayed for two years appointing a Sectoral Oversight committee introduced by the 19th Amendment. Whenever the matter is raised at the party leaders’ meeting, the Speaker does not respond.

“The COPA and COPE had been functioning well, exposing massive waste and corruption. For example, when the recent sugar scam had been exposed, the COPA asked for a report on the matter from the Treasury which duly submitted it to the committee so that everybody could learn that the loss of the scam was Rs 150,000 million. The committee chairman asked for a forensic audit report on the matter but even after months that report was not submitted. Now that investigation process would have to be started all over again.

“There is another issue of bringing a fertiliser ship from China. There is neither fertilizer nor money at the end of that deal. There is no committee to discuss this issue. The matter could be raised in the House but the government could evade it without giving a proper response. During the budget debate we raised many questions but none of them was answered by the government properly.

“There are reports that the government has commenced talks with New Delhi to obtain a loan of USD 1.4 billion to buy food, medicine and fuel. In return the government is going to give remaining oil tanks and some islands in the northern sea to India.

“Because of the prorogation around 1,500 motions and questions included in the Order Book would be dumped.

“The country is in a crisis. There is no collective responsibility in the Cabinet itself. We see ministers making their own statements and some have even opposed the government’s deals with foreign companies. Some Ministers even have issued affidavits against them. How a government could move forward in this manner?

“This government has no vision. For example, they created the fertilizer issue by expediting organic fertilizer use in the country which was promised in their manifesto to be done in 10 years. Later they attributed the failure to Covid-19. But everybody knows that the Covid-19 is not the cause of shortage of food, medicine, rising of the prices of essential goods, gas leak explosions etc.

“There is no price control. The rice prices are decided by the miller mafia. The government’s control of prices is the best indicator to show that it has lost control of the country.

“We think that the government should go for an election so that it could test the public opinion. Every democratic country holds an election every two years. We urge the government to hold the local government or provincial election soon.

“The media too should be blamed for the present crisis. It was the media that projected Gotabaya Rajapaksa as a super hero during the election campaign. For example, there was a press conference after Gotabaya Rajapaksa was named the SLPP Presidential candidate. He could not even answer some questions including those about the economy. He dodged and referred them to Mahinda Rajapaksa. The media should have highlighted that. They did not do so. If that happened in a presidential campaign in another country that candidate would have been forced to resign by people. How could one who cannot answer a question on the economy can run a country? What happened here is that the candidate got the chance to answer the question from someone else. That is similar to a contestant of the Sirasa Lakshapathi getting a lifeline. Now everybody sees the results and the media who covered that up too should be responsible for the present predicament the county is faced with,” Kiriella said.

Puttalam District SJB MP Hector Appuhamy also addressed the press.