WE ARE BEING DISCRIMINATED AGAINST IN HOUSE: DILAN
Post of the Leader of the Opposition:
Frontliner of the SLFP rebel group, Badulla District Parliamentarian Dilan Perera yesterday said the joint opposition only wanted the post of the Leader of the Opposition to be given to one of their members because they were being discriminated against in Parliament.
He inquired whether their request for the same amount of time given to the opposition led by Mr. R. Sambandan who had only 16 members in comparison to their group which had 70 members in Parliament was unethical or unfair?.
“Our main objective is not to grab the post of Leader of the Opposition but to win equal rights in a Parliament that treats a larger group of members in
Our main objective is not to grab the post of Leader of the Opposition but to win equal rights in a Parliament that treats a larger group of members in the opposition differently and discriminates against us
the opposition differently and discriminates against us,” Mr. Perera lamented.
Commenting on the controversial Central Bank bond scam Mr. Perera noted that the biggest ever financial fraud in the history of the public sector in Sri Lanka seems to have been swept under the carpet.
“No one talks about the bond scam as many other unimportant topics have now taken centerstage such as the proposal to reactivate capital punishment, FTAS and punishment meted out to Buddhist monks etc. No action has been taken to bring the main perpetrator of the bond scam, Arjuna Mahendran, who went abroad to evade arrest, to justice. I cannot help but think the Attorney General is in a deep slumber,” Mr. Perera said.
He added that a future SLFP government would not rest until justice was meted out to all the culprits involved in the bond scam.
Mr. Perera pointed out that former Secretary to the President Austin Fernando has been rewarded for refusing to provide information related to bond scam with a diplomatic posting in India. “Fernando released only a part of the bond scam report to Parliament. He retained the most important and sensitive information from Parliament. He has now been appointed as Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to India in New Delhi as a reward for suppressing vital information with regards to the bond scam,” he stressed.