The Hon. G.G. Ponnambalam
Hon. G.G. Ponnambalam argued that the composition of the Committee on Parliamentary Business should reflect the presence of single-Member parties and independent groups that do not necessarily align with the main Opposition. He said the Standing Orders were framed for a two-party context and called for flexibility, as in previous Parliaments, so that each constituent party can be informed of and contribute to Parliament’s functioning.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Thank you, Sir.
¶ 02 Sir, while we sit in the Opposition, our party is a single-Member party and often does not agree with the main Opposition. Many of us are single-Member parties or independent groups. For the Committee on Parliamentary Business, unlike other Committees, we need to know how Parliament functions because we are totally independent. Standing Order numbers were framed in a two-party era and do not reflect today’s reality. Previous Parliaments were flexible with the Committee’s numbers to accommodate current realities. At least every constituent party should be able to know and contribute to the functioning of Parliament; otherwise, we are kept in the dark, which is unfair to our mandate.
Provenance
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- Hansard, Friday, 6 December 2024 ·No. 1734424725051921 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. G.G. Ponnambalam. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 6 December 2024. No. 1734424725051921. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/19525