Former foreign minister G.L. Peiris on Thursday called for the resignation of Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody over the substandard coal import controversy, speaking at a Colombo press conference held on behalf of a group of opposition members one day before Parliament debates a no-confidence motion against the minister.
Peiris said Jayakody should step down voluntarily and that if he refused, the government should intervene to remove him from office. He rejected the government’s argument that the coal irregularities occurred before the minister assumed his current portfolio, pointing to what he said was Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) material indicating sufficient evidence tied to an executive role Jayakody held at a state institution at the time.
The press conference represented an SLPP bloc and adds a second major opposition voice to the resignation demand, alongside the Samagi Jana Balawegaya which has led the political attack on the minister over the Lakvijaya coal procurement. The motion is scheduled for debate in Parliament on Friday, April 10, and is the first no-confidence motion filed against a minister of the NPP government.
The Lakvijaya coal crisis centres on an audit finding of roughly Rs. 2.24 billion in efficiency losses at the coal-fired plant from shipments whose gross calorific value fell below contract specification, and has been linked by the auditor general’s office to broader procurement irregularities being probed by parliament’s COPE committee. Energy Minister Jayakody has denied personal wrongdoing.
With the SJB and a section of the SLPP now publicly aligned behind the resignation call, Friday’s debate has become a cross-party opposition front against the government on the energy portfolio, even though the NPP’s parliamentary majority makes defeat of the motion the expected outcome. The motion was subsequently defeated 153-49, with the government announcing a Presidential Commission on coal procurement during the debate.
