If House meets late, will Committees meet at all? -Official

By Chathura Weerasekara

With the proposal to change parliamentary session hours from morning to evening, different ideas are emerging from the government and the opposition parties.
Chief opposition whip John Amaratunga says that their party had proposed to hold parliamentary sessions “from morning to evening”. He is of the view that as a standardamount is paid for the whole day, it is all-right for all MPs to be in parliament from morning till late night.
MP John Amaratunga also pointed to the potential wastage of state money by holding parliament sessions till late. “As offices are open from the morning till late in the evening, the cost of electricity would be very high and the state has to pay the food costs and overtime” he said. MP John Amaratunga said that the total amount of these costs may surpass millions of rupees, and the government is totally ignorant of it.
Besides, the chief opposition whip says that, it would be difficult for the local media to telecast or broadcast parliamentary proceedings to the public within the day. Thus, the public may lose an opportunity to be informed of what is happening in the country.” “For example”, says the chief opposition whip, “the people don’t get the opportunity to know what the opposition stated in parliament, on the same day”

Ministers miss discussions

LakbimaNews also spoke to Vasudeva Nanayakkara, leader of the Democratic Left Front about the opinions and allegations of the UNP about changing the hours of parliamentary sittings. MP Vasudeva initialy mooted the proposal of changing the hours parliament will be in session in the future.
According to him, “the consultative committees meet in the morning, and vital decisions regarding the functioning of the ministries are taken by these committees. The issues regarding the ministries are presented to those committees and the solutions are discussed in those committees”.
Thus, the DLF leader says that the ministers miss the important discussions that take place in those committees as parliamentary sessions are scheduled in the morning. “There are around 40 consultative committees, and the MPs who participate in these committee meetings miss the debates in parliament. If the parliamentary session hours can be changed, the MPs have time to meet public officials and discuss important issues” he said.
Also, responding to allegations of the opposition about costs, the DLF leader says that costs that the opposition points to are not going to be very high as they allege. He is of the view that the discussions that take place in those committees are more beneficial to the state than the cost of the electricity bills.
Regarding the problems faced by employees of parliament in this process, the DLF leader says that the government has taken necessary steps regarding the transportation of the employees at the end of the parliamentary sessions. As he puts it “if parliament sessions are going to be held till late in the night, only a few employees would be required to be present. It is not a problem for the government to provide them transport”.
MP Vasudeva Nanayakkara also said that parliamentary sessions were held late in the evening not so long ago. “Sometimes the debates were held till the morning of the following day”, he said.
However, when we contacted a top official in parliament regarding the issue, he said “I have seen many instances where the 20 members required for the quorum were not there. I have been working here for twenty years. Even for select committee meetings, sometimes, there were only one or two MPs and many times select committees and consultative committees have been postponed as a result”. He pointed out that many ministers were not giving priority to proceedings in parliament and just because the hours have changed, he says, he can’t expect ministers and MPs to participate in those committee meetings.
When asked about the efficacy of holding parliamentary sessions in the evening, he replied that such an idea would result in a mere “white elephant”. He pointed out the fact that ministers cannot be drawn into either the consultative committee meetings or parliamentary debates by merely changing the hours of parliamentary sessions. “For example’’, he said “some ministers don’t know that their ministry has a problem till they come into the discussions, and some ministers are not in parliament when matters about their ministries are being debated in parliament. Even though there is a good mechanism to inform ministers about what was happening in their ministries, they don’t get the benefit. On the other hand, they have their own staff as well to study these issues.”

History of parliament

In conclusion, he said that he is not sure whether any consultative committee would meet at all after the change of hours of parliamentary sessions.
Usually parliamentary proceedings go on from 9.30 am to 4.30 pm. According to the proposal of MP Vasudeva, the proceedings in parliament may start at 1.30 pm.