PARLIAMENT

For the first time ever in Parliament history the registration of Members of the new Parliament was done via an online system during the period of August 10th - 15th. The process concluded successfully with all the Members submitting their details to the parliament secretariat by August 15th. In total, all 223 MPs (currently gazetted) have submitted their details; from the youngest Hon. Jeevan Thondaman to the oldest Hon. Rajavarothiam Sampanthan.

Traditionally this process has been conducted in the presence of each Member with newly-elected Members having to visit an information desk setup in the Parliament Complex. However with the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic situation, the parliament secretariat has introduced several digital mechanisms in its activities and the online registration is one of these initiatives. This enabled each elected Member of the Ninth Parliament to submit their information while staying in their constituencies without travelling to the Parliament.

The process began with the Elections Commission sending the list of names of the elected MPs to Parliament together with their NIC numbers. This limited information was thereafter used to authenticate each MP when they accessed the registration portal. All information including biographical details entered by MPs were thereafter vetted and verified by secretarial staff, before transferring to the internal systems, thereby preventing any misinformation or security risks.

The process was initiated with the Prime Minister Hon. Mahinda Rajapaksa submitting his details via the online system from Temple Trees on the August 11th.

This online registration system made possible the collection of Members’ information in an efficient and reliable manner with minimal involvement of staff members while overcoming the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic situation. The information submitted by MPs is now available to the Parliament Website and internal systems.

The system was developed by the staff of the Department of Information Systems & Management of Parliament.