The Hon. (Dr.) Harsha de Silva
Former Committee on Public Finance Chair Harsha de Silva said the proposed framework had been extensively discussed with officials and the Attorney-General in the previous Parliament to address the lack of a legal basis for earlier Votes on Account. He argued there was now no legal issue, though there may be an ethical concern, and suggested that the mover should have clarified to the House that time constraints prevented a full Appropriation Bill and sought its indulgence.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, give me a minute.
¶ 02 A bit of context: as former Chair of the Committee on Public Finance in the last Parliament, we debated this extensively with officials and the Attorney-General before approving. The reason for bringing this new law was that earlier Votes on Account lacked a legal framework. Now there is no legal issue; at most there is an ethical concern. A simple solution would have been for Hon. Anil Jayantha, when moving this, to open by saying there was no time to bring a full Appropriation and therefore seek the House’s indulgence—that would have set the context.
Provenance
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- Hansard, Thursday, 5 December 2024 ·No. 1734081038099638 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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/lk/speeches/12549
Cite as: The Hon. (Dr.) Harsha de Silva. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 5 December 2024. No. 1734081038099638. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/12549