Speaker requests President to overrule Cabinet decision

Speaker W. J. M. Lokubandara has urged President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is also the Minister in charge of the finance, not to restrict the use of official phones of members of Parliament.
The Parliament Secretariat has informed the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry that it would continue to settle telephone bills as the Finance Ministry hadn’t responded to the Speaker’s appeal.
Earlier, the Cabinet had endorsed a proposal to impose a ceiling on telephone bills in a bid to cut down on State expenditure, sources said.
All 225 members are entitled to two official telephones.
Sources said the Cabinet had decided to cut down on telephone bills way back on December 20, 2006.
Although this decision had been conveyed to the Presidential Secretariat, Secretary to the Prime Minister, Treasury Secretary and the Auditor General in the first week of January 2007 and several letters exchanged between Parliamentary Affairs Ministry and Parliamentary Secretariat subsequently, no action had been taken to implement it, sources said.
The government, struggling on the economic front is under heavy pressure to cut down on waste, corruption and irregularities.