21 December 2016 12:00 am
A Southern Provincial Minister forfeited his portfolio when his Ministry’s expenditure vote under the 2017 Budget was defeated recently.
The ruling party members had been at loggerheads with the ousted Minister for a long time over the latter’s negative response to their requests. And they had threatened to vote against his Ministry’s expenditure allocation at the voting time, but the Minister had refused to soften his stiff attitude.
The Chief Minister, who made a consistent effort to save the situation, had made an eleventh-hour bid to get the Minister to sign a letter promising the aggrieved ruling party members to comply with their reasonable requests. But the Minister had curtly refused to sign the letter. And when his Ministry’s expenditure allocation came up for voting, the ruling party members had joined the opposition in voting against it, they say.