Following the constitutional coup in October 2018 Sri Lanka witnessed a series of the ugliest events in political history. The Ministers of Parliament behaved in an utterly contemptible manner going into heated verbal attacks that even escalated to physical attacks. Their behaviour caused a lot of damage to the Parliament House.
The Right to Information (RTI) Act that was enacted by the very lawmakers of the Parliament House was used by a group of youngsters requesting to know the cost of the damages caused by the MPs and the amount that would cover the expenses. The request was filed in January 2019.
According to the response of the RTI application damages had been done to the microphones and they had to be replaced. The purchasing for the replacements was made from Hayley’s Aventura, a private company. The cost for the new equipment was Rs. 344,958. 18 while another Rs. 29,670.00 was spent to install the new items. Hence, a total of Rs. 374,628.18 was spent on new equipment. The RTI law enabled such information to be public and expose the cost of the damage caused by the MPs.
The applicants state that as youth they are happy about the RTI Act as they received answers for the questions they raised and commended the prompt reply made by the Information Officer of the Parliament. Also they said that this encouraged them to apply RTI applications and follow up with them in the future as well.
This update was prepared by participants of the Information and Communication Training Workshop conducted by the Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI) through a grant funded by the United States Agency for International Development through the Strengthening Democratic Governance and Accountability Project Activity.
“The contents of this post are the sole responsibility of SLPI and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.”
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