{"id":115154,"date":"2021-06-12T16:44:38","date_gmt":"2021-06-12T23:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=115154"},"modified":"2021-06-12T16:44:38","modified_gmt":"2021-06-12T23:44:38","slug":"importing-luxury-vehicles-for-mps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/06\/12\/importing-luxury-vehicles-for-mps\/","title":{"rendered":"Importing luxury vehicles for MPs"},"content":{"rendered":"

S.AKURUGODA<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

As per the main news item that appeared in The Island dated 9\/06\/2021 under the title \u2018Covid time bonanza: Luxury SUVs for MPs coming, after all!\u2019, the government was not in a position to cancel the order placed for the import of luxury vehicles for the 225 MPs as the opening of Letters of Credit meant guaranteed payment and Letters of Credit had been opened through a State Banks, Sri Lanka faced the prospect of being blacklisted if a unilateral decision was taken on the matter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttps:\/\/island.lk\/covid-time-bonanza-luxury-suvs-for-mps-coming-after-all\/\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The above reveals expressed by the Media Minister and co-Cabinet spokesperson Keheliya Rambukwella is in contrary to what we learned earlier after reading a statement issued from The Prime Minister\u2019s Office in the last week of May which stated that the previous cabinet paper for the import of 399 vehicles at a cost of Rs 3.7bn had been withdrawn as the financial situation was not conducive to import vehicles. It is also in contrary to the SLPP\u2019s 2019 presidential election manifesto which assured that vehicles wouldn\u2019t be imported for members of parliament for a period of three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is interesting to note how the current opposition politicians who were barking at every and each move made by the government, since its inception, have gone dumb and deaf when the government move on vehicles made at a time the country was struggling to cope with Covid-19 fallout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is hard to believe\nthat a single MP, including new MPs, in the current Parliament does not possess\nhis\/her own vehicles.  Unlike during 1950s,\nit is also hard to believe that any one of the current MPs uses public\ntransport or hire vehicles to attend parliamentary sessions or any of their\nactivities. We remember how the government Ministers like D.S. Gunasekera , W.\nDahanayake etc who were MPs in the 1956-1960 Parliament used public transport\nwhen attending Parliamentary sessions. We also remember, around 1959, how\nMinister Gunasekera was fined by the railway ticket checkers for his failure to\nshow his railway pass issued for MPs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, as\nper media reports, the\nGovernment, including the Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi, has requested\naffluent locals, INGOs, local NGOs and Sri Lankan living in foreign countries\nto donate their allocated funds for the remaining quarters of the year for the\nbattle against the COVID-19 pandemic which has surged to critical proportions\nin recent weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While our politicians are attempting to import\nluxury vehicles costing billions of Rupees at this crucial stage, New Zealand\u2019s\nParliamentarians, including PM, ministers and public service chief executives made\nan example to the entire world by making a commitment to take a 20% pay cut\nlasting six months to show solidarity with those affected by the corona virus\noutbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the government should do at this stage,\nif the withdrawal of the said cabinet paper is not preventing the import of\nluxury vehicle for MPS and the Prime Minister\u2019s office is really keen in\navoiding the waste of money, is to auction the vehicles soon after arrival (or\nif already arrived) and use proceeds to counter the epidemic, as the death toll continues to rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

S.AKURUGODA<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

S.AKURUGODA As per the main news item that appeared in The Island dated 9\/06\/2021 under the title \u2018Covid time bonanza: Luxury SUVs for MPs coming, after all!\u2019, the government was not in a position to cancel the order placed for the import of luxury vehicles for the 225 MPs as the opening of Letters of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-s-akurugoda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}