Proroguing Parliament may cause several problems: UNP

Some United National Party (UNP) MPs today claimed that proroguing Parliament till January 3, 2020 was bound to create several issues and also suspicion about political deals.

UNP MPs Harin Fernando, S.M. Marikkar, Harsha De Silva, Hesha Vithanage, Chaminda Wijesiri and Nalin Bandara Jayamaha said this at a news conference and pointed out that there was no necessity to prorogue the House till January next year.

“A newly elected President has the right to prorogue Parliament for sometime but there was certainly no necessity to prorogue it for a month,” MP Marikkar said.

He said the forensic audit report on the bond scam was to have been presented to the House yesterday but this has been postponed with the prorogation. “One objective of the prorogation may have been to prevent the presentation of the forensic audit report of the bond scam as it would have revealed as to who was really behind the scam,” he said.

The MP said the new government should have allowed sittings to continue so that new legislation which were needed to implement the new government's policies should been discussed and approved. He said it would have been possible to debate the proposed Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) agreement and take relevant decisions if Parliament sessions were held.

MP Fernando said prorogation would delay the new opposition leader from taking office. This he said would create an issue as the new constitutional council which had to be appointed with the change of government may be without the opposition leader.(Yohan Perera)