{"id":81500,"date":"2018-09-28T16:17:51","date_gmt":"2018-09-28T23:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=81500"},"modified":"2018-09-28T16:17:51","modified_gmt":"2018-09-28T23:17:51","slug":"lawyer-asks-mangala-if-he-intends-to-strip-mps-of-duty-free-vehicle-permits-govt-move-to-halt-super-luxury-vehicle-imports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/09\/28\/lawyer-asks-mangala-if-he-intends-to-strip-mps-of-duty-free-vehicle-permits-govt-move-to-halt-super-luxury-vehicle-imports\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawyer asks Mangala if he intends to strip MPs of duty free vehicle permits Govt. move to halt super luxury vehicle imports"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Shamindra Ferdinando\u00a0Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Attorney-at-law and public litigation activist Nagananda Kodituwakku, yesterday, said that Finance and Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera should explain what he really meant when he said that the super luxury vehicle imports wouldn\u2019t be allowed\u00a0next year.<\/p>\n

Kodituwakku was commenting on Samaraweera\u2019s\u00a0declaration\u00a0at an event at the Royal College, Colombo on Thursday (Sept 27)\u00a0that\u00a0the importation of super luxury vehicles by members of parliament\u00a0and others\u00a0should be stopped forthwith.\u00a0Underscoring the growing oil import bill, Samaraweera vowed to halt such imports\u00a0against the backdrop of\u00a0financial difficulties.<\/p>\n

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Samaraweera said that the only way to artificially control the rapid depreciation of the Rupee was to release USD held by the government. Samaraweeara said that however, as the Minister holding the finance portfolio he wasn\u2019t prepared to release funds\u00a0as such funds were\u00a0required to settle foreign debt.<\/p>\n

Samaraweera also warned that a barrel of crude would go up to USD in case of\u00a0a\u00a0conflict between the US and Iran.<\/p>\n

Kodituwakku said that the Finance Minister should explain whether he intended to abolish the special duty free permit scheme implemented for the benefit of members of parliament. Responding\u00a0to a query by\u00a0The Island, Kodituwakku\u00a0said that\u00a0successive governments owed an explanation\u00a0as to\u00a0why\u00a0duty free exemption\u00a0was gradually increased at the expense of\u00a0the national economy.<\/p>\n

Kodituwakku said that\u00a0finally minister had been compelled to\u00a0admit the catastrophic financial crisis caused by uncontrolled import of luxury vehicles.\u00a0Having failed to convince the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC)\u00a0to inquire into duty free vehicle scam involving members of parliament, Kodituwakku said that he moved the Supreme Court against the CIABOC. Minister Samaraweera\u2019s statement couldn\u2019t have been made at a better time, Kodituwakku\u00a0recalling Samaraweera\u2019s predecessor Ravi Karunanayake in his first budget presentation in 2015 promising to do away with duty free vehicle schemes for lawmakers as part of the overall measures to strengthen the national economy.<\/p>\n

Kodituwakku said that instead of abolishing the scheme, Karunanayake paved the way for members of the current parliament to import duty free vehicles, with each tax exemption amounting to at least Rs 30mn. The majority of those vehicles had been sold and the identities of the buyers, too, were known to the Finance Ministry, Kodituwakku said, challenging the Finance Ministry to release the list of buyers and sellers which he (Kodituwakku) obtained from the Customs under the Right to Information (RTI) law.<\/p>\n

Kodituwakku said that all political parties represented in parliament\u00a0should explain\u00a0their stand on special perks and privileges received by them at a heavy cost to the national economy.\u00a0Kodituwakku said that his RTI query had revealed that except six JVP lawmakers in parliament, all\u00a0other political parties and the Joint Opposition members had brazenly abused the permit scheme.<\/p>\n

Kodituwakku urged the Finance Ministry to examine recent CIABOC declaration that transfer of vehicles imported on duty free permits wasn\u2019t contrary to the law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Shamindra Ferdinando\u00a0Courtesy The Island Attorney-at-law and public litigation activist Nagananda Kodituwakku, yesterday, said that Finance and Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera should explain what he really meant when he said that the super luxury vehicle imports wouldn\u2019t be allowed\u00a0next year. Kodituwakku was commenting on Samaraweera\u2019s\u00a0declaration\u00a0at an event at the Royal College, Colombo on Thursday (Sept […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81500","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=81500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}