The Leader of the House has rejected a claim by an opposition MP that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s economic adviser previously held the same post under Ranil Wickremesinghe, and has asked the MP to withdraw it.
Bimal Rathnayake, Leader of the House and a cabinet minister, told Parliament that Duminda Hulangamuwa had never served as an economic adviser to Mr Wickremesinghe, the Daily Mirror reported.
The claim he was answering had been made in the chamber on Wednesday by SJB MP Harsha de Silva, who said President Dissanayake sought advice from Mr Hulangamuwa and that Mr Hulangamuwa had also served as an economic adviser to the former President.
What Rathnayake told the House
Mr Rathnayake said Mr Hulangamuwa had informed him that he had never served as an economic adviser to Mr Wickremesinghe, or to any other President or Prime Minister, and that his current role under the National People’s Power government was his first such appointment.
Mr Rathnayake said Mr Hulangamuwa had only served as a member of various committees, and held positions in them, during his tenure as Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.
“Other than that, Ranil Wickremesinghe has never appointed him to any position,” he said.
The minister called on Dr de Silva to withdraw his statement, describing the claim as entirely false.
Why the distinction is being pressed
The exchange is narrow but the ground it is fought on is not. An adviser who served two administrations of opposing political character would be evidence of continuity between them; an adviser appointed for the first time by this government would not.
Both sides are arguing about the same fact — whether a single appointment existed — because each reads it as evidence about the administration’s economic direction rather than about the individual.
Note also what the government’s denial rests on. Mr Rathnayake did not cite an appointment record or a gazette; he told the House what Mr Hulangamuwa had told him. The distinction between committee membership and an advisory appointment is the hinge of the denial, and it is the kind of distinction a documentary record would settle directly.
Not reported
The filing does not report any response from Dr de Silva to the request that he withdraw his statement, or say whether he repeated, qualified or withdrew the claim in the chamber.
It does not give the date or terms of Mr Hulangamuwa’s current appointment, name the committees he served on during his Ceylon Chamber of Commerce tenure, or carry any comment from Mr Hulangamuwa or Mr Wickremesinghe directly.
On sourcing. One verified newsroom had filed on this exchange at the time of writing. Hiru’s homepage carried no item on it, and it did not appear on NewsFirst’s homepage. Ada Derana could not be checked, its site having returned a CloudFront block to this desk for more than a month.
Source: Daily Mirror.