• Dayasiri wants Treasury/Finance Min. Secy hauled before P’ment Privileges Committee 
• Semasinghe says MPs permitted to submit proposals to District Committee
• Dullas says MPs only true direct pub. reps due to absence of PCs/LGs 

Opposition Parliamentarians yesterday (24) criticised the Government’s decision not to disburse funds to MPs – which they have been entitled to for many decades under the decentralised funds of the Budget – and instead allocating those funds to district coordination committees.

President and Minister of Finance, Economic Stabilisation, and National Policies Ranil Wickremesinghe recently said that the Government would allocate Rs. 11,250 million through district coordination committees to recommence the decentralised budget programme, which had been put on hold for three years due to the current economic crisis. Addressing the recent district coordination committee meeting held at the Presidential Secretariat, the Head of State revealed that the money would be released to district secretaries in the first week of this month. 

Against this backdrop, tabling a letter sent by Ministry of Finance Secretary Mahinda Siriwardana in Parliament yesterday, Opposition MP Dayasiri Jayasekara rebuked Siriwardana, claiming that his letter has breached the Parliamentary privileges of MPs. Jayasekara alleged that his (Siriwardana’s) letter addressed only district coordination committee chairpersons and district secretaries, while noting that no MPs were entitled to use funds given to the said committees for their (MPs) purposes. He said that this decision has breached the privileges of MPs even when the President had stated that the Government was going to resume the allocation of decentralised funds. 

Jayasekara stated that MPs were not invited to meetings held in villages even though the said letter directed district secretaries and committee chairpersons to allocate funds for development programmes in villages. He also queried State Minister of Finance Shehan Semasinghe as to whether the Government had stopped disbursing those funds to MPs, while urging Speaker of the Parliament Mahinda Yapa Abeywardana to summon the Secretary to the Finance Ministry before the Parliamentary Privileges Committee.

In response to the question raised by MP Jayasekara, Semasinghe said that the letter was a series of guidelines given to district secretaries and the said committee chairpersons which had been issued under the relevant circulars, and that therefore, the allegations raised against the Finance Ministry's Secretary were baseless as he had not breached the privileges of any MP. He also noted that every MP was allowed to submit their proposals and suggestions to the district coordination committee of the respective district regarding the projects. 

Meanwhile, Opposition MP Dullas Alahapperuma emphasised that the practice of allocating those decentralised funds had been followed since the 1970s and also claimed that MPs must have the opportunity to contribute to them directly since they are the only public representatives in the country at the moment as both provincial councils (PCs) and local governments (LGs) were not functioning. He also said that while the funds were being disbursed to MPs, the Finance Ministry should work to make criteria on how to allocate the funds to get the maximum use of it.

Delivering the 2024 Budget speech in Parliament, Wickremesinghe mentioned that the programme would be implemented under the supervision of the Department of National Planning, using a systematic and standard approach. “Regional development programmes were temporarily suspended due to the economic crisis in the country and the lack of funds under the decentralised budget programme. As these programmes could not be implemented, public representatives could not contribute to rural development activities,” he told Parliament in November 2023.