10th Parliament· 154 sittings on record · 30,475 speeches · latest 10 June 2026

The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake

Jathika Jana balawegaya· National List· 18 December 2024 ·Procedural: Procedural Matters and Points of Order

Parliamentary Procedure
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Bimal Rathnayake stated the Government’s position on parliamentary committee chairmanships, noting that COPA has been allocated to the Opposition and that Standing Orders place the Committee on Public Finance under the Opposition. He said COPE, given its mandate to examine institutional performance and past financial and administrative irregularities, should be chaired by the Government.

Verbatim record (translated)

Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English

¶ 01 Hon. Member, you made that request to His Excellency the President.

¶ 02 Our position is clear. The COPA Chair has been given to the Opposition. Under Standing Orders, the Chair of the Committee on Public Finance is also with the Opposition. As for COPE, we have clarified our stance: COPE’s current mandate is to inquire into the performance, including financial and administrative irregularities, of the relevant institutions over past years. Therefore, we believe the Government should hold the COPE Chair. The COPA Chair to the Opposition; the COPE Chair to the Government. That is our position.

Provenance

Source
Hansard, Wednesday, 18 December 2024 ·No. 1735286612086554 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
Page · column
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Permalink
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Cite as: The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 18 December 2024. No. 1735286612086554. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/12153