Outstanding Money Bills passed

Uditha Kumarasinghe, Rajmi Manatunga and Irangika Range

The Government saw through the passage of four Monetary Bills re-submitted to Parliament yesterday, despite protests by Opposition parties.

Accordingly, the Finance (Amendment) Bill (No. 257), Regional Infrastructure Development Levy (Amendment) Bill, Excise (Special Provisions) (Amendment) Bill and the Special Commodity Levy Bill were validly passed when they were taken up at the Committee Stage, at the commencement of proceedings yesterday.

The first three Bills passed without a vote while the Special Commodity Levy Bill was passed with 98 votes in favour and 10 against.

However, the decision to take up the Bills at the committee stage was opposed by the United National Party (UNP) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) who expressed the view that they must be presented to the House afresh, since doing otherwise would be contrary to the Standing Orders.

The four Bills which were initially presented and declared passed in Parliament on September 6 were taken up again yesterday following a decision by Speaker W.J.M. Lokubandara on September 21 that they were not validly passed at the committee stage.

Addressing the House, Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe said that the Standing Orders did not provide for a situation where a Bill which has not passed all stages was required to become a valid law. “Therefore, we have to devise a method of dealing with such a situation. It is not a question of challenging the Speaker’s ruling,” he said.

Agreeing with the UNP’s position, JVP Parliamentary group leader Wimal Weerawansa, argued out that if the Speaker intended to hold the Committee Stage of the Bills on another day, he should have made a declaration to that effect on September 6.

However, the Speaker pointed out that the UNP and the JVP did not raise these issues when Party Leaders met to discuss the resubmission of the Bills, and decided to proceed with the Committee Stage of the Bills.

The JVP Parliamentarians walked off the Chambers after expressing their opposition to the Speaker’s decision while the UNP members remained and abstained from voting.

The Tamil National Alliance voted against the Bills.