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CoL soars, MPs want luxury vehicles
By Chris Kamalendran
With millions of people being crushed under an increase in cost of living, a Cabinet Minister wants the Government to allocate Rs. 300 million to import luxury vehicles for 68 new members of Parliament.

The move comes after the MPs concerned, both from the Government and the Opposition, were not in favour of importing low cost vehicles under the existing credit line from India. They have also not been able to pick on vehicles of their choice from a fleet seized by the Customs and lying in the Colombo Port.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Milroy Fernando told The Sunday Times that in an attempt to keep the cost low he wanted the MPs to make use of vehicles which have been seized by the Customs. On inspection the members found that the vehicles were either corroded, damaged or some of them cannot be removed due to pending court cases.

Mr. Fernando said the MPs were first told to visit the Ports where the seized vehicles had been stored and accordingly Parliamentarians were taken in batches to the port. The MPs had first visited the port area where the seized luxury vehicles were parked, but found that most of these vehicles could not be released as there were court cases pending. Thereafter they were taken to another lot which mostly contained motorcycles while the remaining vehicles were either damaged or corroded.

The 68 MPs from the UPFA, UNP, JHU, TNA, SLMC and the CWC are entitled to import vehicles. Parliamentary Affairs Ministry Secretary, R. Kuruppu confirmed that the cabinet paper would be submitted to import vehicles from Japan.

The Sunday Times learns that majority of the members are insisting that they be allowed to import vehicles from Japan as the vehicles imported from India had less market value compared to the Japanese vehicles.

"Most of the MPs are known to sell their vehicles. That is one of the reasons why they are insisting on Japanese vehicles," a minister said. The MPs who are entitled to duty free vehicles could pay on instalment basis over six years.

The demand from the MPs to import Japanese vehicles comes in the wake of comments made by Finance Minister Sarath Amunugama that in the coming weeks they would have to remove subsidies on a variety of consumer items including sugar, chillies, onions and potatoes.

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