Mar 20, Colombo: Speaker of the Sri Lankan parliament Chamal Rajapaksa has blamed officials from the Finance Ministry for the delay in presenting certain finance bills in the House.

The finance bills are connected to this year's budget and such bills are to be approved in parliament within three months of the presentation of the budget.

Rajapaksa has claimed that the Finance Ministry should not have waited till the last minute to present them.

He has explained that the budget was approved on December 8 last year and the bills are being brought just before the end of the financial year.

The Speaker has made this comment in response to a question posed by the main opposition United National Party (UNP) on the validity of the 21 bills that were presented in a hurry.

Speaker Rajapaksa has said that he did not have the authority to act against such officials.

Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremasinghe complained that the government has violated the standing orders that deal with the presentation of bills by not having them delivered to MPs on time.