The Hon. (Dr.) Harsha de Silva

¶ 01 Good. We also see that as cleaning up.

¶ 02 Hon. Minister, do not split it into two; when we say “clean,” we mean cleaning corruption too—this must be part of Clean Sri Lanka. In the Committee on Public Finance we raised serious concerns, and after much effort we presented a 665‑page report to this House. Implement it. Investigate the visa issue and carry out that cleaning too.

¶ 03 You also said ministers are not taking official residences or traveling with escorts. We too did not take official residences or escorts; we did not appoint relatives to embassies or to private staff. We did not take free medicines. You said you did not put your names on the new court complex plaque; we too never put our names on projects funded by public money—we thank only the taxpayers.

¶ 04 You said volunteers are helping—names like Hans Wijesuriya and a professor from Texas, Udumalasooriya. That is fine. We too worked with volunteers for the 1990 Suwaseriya—no salaries, no offices, no allowances, no vehicles paid for by us: names like Duminda Ratnayaka, Vijaya Mallalasekera (until his passing), Vish Govindasamy, Prof. Asita de Silva, and Sandhya Salgado—who, I see, is also now helping your programme. We did not advertise it, but we did it. Therefore, Hon. Prime Minister and Hon. Minister, we are ready to join and work on this; but let’s understand “clean” correctly and do it right.

¶ 05 On electricity tariffs, much has been said. Someone claimed PUCSL is under government and so its decision is yours. That is not how it happened. Earlier, the PUCSL Chair stated tariffs should be increased by 37 percent. The Hon. Minister spoke here; and I raised a Privilege matter: although the Minister claimed CEB losses, in fact CEB had massive profits in the hundreds of billions—so investigate. The Leader of the House agreed. That was dirty, not clean; it must be cleaned. You tried to create a narrative of losses to avoid tariff reductions.

¶ 06 You said tariffs would be cut by 30 percent—but in three years. That is not true or clean. In public consultations we demonstrated your calculations were wrong; at least 11 percent reduction was feasible, and more was possible. So if you are cleaning, clean all of it. We never opposed the PUCSL; it was established in 2002 under Minister Karu Jayasuriya.

¶ 07 Similarly, petroleum pricing lacks transparency. If you hold consultations, we can show errors in presented data. PUCSL is the regulator for petroleum as well; we opposed creating a separate regulator. PUCSL covers petroleum, water, and electricity. Were water tariffs properly decided? Petroleum? Electricity? We did not know; you accepted what was given. Only after consultations did you accept the need to clean the dirty work. If petroleum pricing is dirty, clean it; if water tariffs are dirty, clean them too.