On June 21, 2017, the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) Amendment Bill was unanimously passed by Sri Lanka's Parliament. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, presenting the Bill to the House, declared, "This institution is paramount in order to put an end to the issue pertaining to the disappearance of persons as soon as possible." On August 11, 2016, despite objections raised by the Joint Opposition which alleged that the Bill will betray the military, the OMP Bill was passed in Parliament without a vote, after the Prime Minister convinced the Joint Opposition that, "This office is not vested with powers to take criminal actions or prosecute forces for war crimes, as some claimed. It would be purely a legal process." The OMP will identify appropriate mechanisms for and help search for and trace missing persons, submit recommendations to authorities to take measures on missing persons, protect the rights of missing persons and their relatives, identify channels through which missing persons and their relatives can obtain relief, collate data related to missing persons obtained by Government institutions and other institutions, and centralize all available data within its database.