Kiriella says govt. ignores Opposition’s requests at party leaders’ meetings

By Saman Indrajith

Chief Opposition Whip and Kandy District MP Lakshman Kiriella yesterday said in Parliament that Opposition’s requests were not heeded by government at the party leaders’ meeting.

MP Kiriella said that he had asked for tabling of the reports of the Presidential Commissions of Inquiry on the Easter Sunday carnage and Political Victimisation at the last party leaders’ meeting and for a debate on them too. “I also asked for advancing the sitting time to 9.30 am from 10 am to allow more time for MP’s questions but the government representatives have the majority in the party leaders meeting therefore our requests are not listened to. We can only make requests there,” he said in response to a remark made by Chief Government Whip and Highways Minister Johnston Fernando, who said that the matter of allocation of time for questions and private members’ motions should be taken up at the party leaders’ meeting.

JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake:

We too have called for the tabling of these reports. We expected the government to have done so within this sitting week. But today is the last date. The government has failed to table those reports. These presidential commissions have met and published reports using public funds. Therefore people have the right to know of the content of the reports made using their money. We have seen newspaper reports carrying certain parts of those reports. The reports are not made public but parts of them are leaked to certain newspapers. More than the political victimization commission report, people need to know about the report on the Easter Sunday terror attacks where over 250 were killed and around 500 wounded.

Leader of the House Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena:

“We have agreed to table the reports as soon as we get them and also promised to give a date for the debate on their content. We have given that assurance to the House and it will be so. There is no need for you to raise the matter every single day. There is a history of reports of presidential commissions. You know that there have been many presidential commissions whose reports are still not released to the public even after years and decades. We will not behave in that manner.”