The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake
Hon. Bimal Rathnayake responded to allegations raised by Hon. Nalin Bandara, stating that he would not elaborate because the matter was before court and that the Police and the court process should proceed. He also addressed an issue concerning the Merchant Shipping Secretariat, explaining that an officer had applied for five years’ leave and that a replacement senior administrative officer had been appointed under ministerial authority, not as a political appointment.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, I must briefly respond to a point by Hon. Nalin Bandara. As the matter is before court, I will not elaborate. As the saying goes, “the pumpkin thief is known by the scratches on his body.” You, Hon. Presiding Member, as a literary scholar, would see who ran the contract underworld in Bingiriya. Let the Police act properly; the matter is before court. We will await the court’s order.
¶ 02 On the Merchant Shipping Secretariat: someone must have written to him. That officer has applied for five years’ leave. When someone goes on long leave, should we not appoint a replacement? It is a senior administrative officer, not our political appointee. Ministers have the power. Since he is on long leave, the appointment has been made. Thank you for the opportunity; let the court decide. I do not wish to prolong this.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Wednesday, 8 January 2025 ·No. 1737023464031571 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
- Page · column
- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
- Permalink
/lk/speeches/27720
Cite as: The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 8 January 2025. No. 1737023464031571. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/27720