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Colombo, Jan 16 (Daily Mirror) - The government is grappling with a shortage of vehicles for the use of its MPs who don’t hold ministerial responsibilities, and at a loss whether to import double -cabs for them or find them from a different source, a minister said yesterday.
The government has taken a policy decision to assign vehicles to MPs instead of granting permits for them to import without duty, as was the case in the past. Also, the government has decided not to assign luxury vehicles to them as a cost cutting exercise.
Asked about the matter, Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala told Daily Mirror that the luxury vehicles, available with the government, would be auctioned.
“We have enough luxury vehicles. Bu, they cannot be allocated to the MPs in terms of our policy. Valuation is now in progress regarding the fleet of luxury vehicles. We will auction them afterwards. However, we lack double-cabs to be assigned to the MPs. Over 100 of our MPs are without proper vehicle facilities. We will take a decision once the auctioning is done,” he said.
Responding to a query whether double-cabs will be imported for their use once current restrictions are relaxed, he said such a decision had not been taken yet.
“Our MPs who are mostly first timers use their own vehicles to travel to Colombo to attend the parliamentary sessions. Sometimes, two or three MPs use the same vehicle when they come from rural districts. It has become a burning issue,” he said.
However, the ruling party MPs who serve as ministers and deputy ministers have been allocated vehicles.
The new government led by the National People’s Power (NPP) scrapped the policy of granting duty free vehicle permits to the MPs. In the past, the MPs used to transfer these permits for huge sums to businessmen to import luxury vehicles under duty concessions.