Dedicated TV Channel for Parliament proceedings

A dedicated TV Channel would be launched to telecast Parliamentary proceedings, Speaker Karu Jayasuriya said yesterday.

He said steps would be taken to telecast proceedings of all Parliamentary Committees such as COPE and COPA in the future.

Mr. Jayasuriya said journalists would be allowed to cover committee meetings to ensure democracy in the country.

He said even though the COPE and COPA had revealed fraud, corruption and misuse of State resources by Government institutions through their reports, they were not given proper publicity so that people could know about it.

"I regret that we have not used the reports of such committees revealing the fraud and corruption for any good. We hope to debate on such reports in the future. Today we have given the chairmanship of the COPE to the opposition to ensure its impartiality," he said.

He said they had introduced a mobile app so that people could access Parliament proceedings in all three languages from anywhere in the world. (Ajith Siriwardana)