Govt. decides to take up No Faith Motion

The government had tentatively decided to take up the Motion handed over yesterday by six UNP members to the Secretary General of Parliament Dhammika Dassanayaka as in face value it had been drafted properly and following the instructions given by President Maithripala Sirisena and also adhering to the compromise reached by party leaders with him on Sunday night, Government spokesman, Ports and Shipping Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe said.

He added that however, the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) that represents all party leaders has to be appointed and the PSC must appoint 12 sub committees such as the Privilege Committee, Business Committee, Committee of Ethics for the Business Committee or the party leaders committee to take the final decision of the date of debate and the time to be allocated and for vote on the Motion.

Addressing a hastily convened news briefing, Minister Samarasinghe went onto say that it was a new motion handed over by the UNP to the Deputy Speaker Ananda Kumarasiri with six signatures with MPS, Navin Dissanayaka’s name on top. Others five members who had signed it were Ravi Karunanayaka, Kavinda Jayawardana, Hector Appuhamy, Chatura Senaratne and Nalaka Kollonne. We did not oppose it because the new Motion was seemingly ok.

The Motion was as follows: ‘Whereas this House on 16, November, 2018 accepted the official statement made by Hon.