Kapila chandrasena : From High flying to life at state expense
The flamboyant Kapila Chandrasena, as far as his designation goes is Chief Executive Officer of the bankrupt Sri Lankan Airlines and MihinAir.
But the man has begun to trade on another connection. He tells business associates that he is a close confidante of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Using that connection, he has managed to put through several nefarious deals. Having gotten his pockets very full from these transactions, Chandrasena recently purchased a house in Australia. The luxury house came with a large boatyard and he is already speaking about barbecue parties there.
One of the biggest shortcomings of the Rajapaksa government is its failure to carry out background checks on individuals they appoint to top positions in state ventures run on public funds. Even as economic burdens are putting citizens under immense hardship, their hard earned tax rupees are being robbed by crooks like Chandrasena.
What nobody in the regime appears to have realized is that Chandrasena was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States for credit card fraud. Chandrasena only escaped a prison term because his friends in the US contributed money to hire lawyers and pay the amount involved. Furthermore, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) head office in Colombo maintains files on investigations carried out against Chandrasena for fraudulent activity.
Despite this chequered history, the man who carried the bags of casino mafia leader Joe Sim is today the executive head of Sri Lanka’s national carrier. Employees at Sri Lankan Airlines want President Rajapaksa to intervene before the airline is grounded because of Chandrasena’s misdeeds. According to UL employees, Chandrasena is also misleading the other misfit at the helm of the airline, President Rajapaksa’s brother-in-law, Nishantha Wickremesinghe.
Wickremesinghe’s only expertise is tea bushes, insiders claim, and he has no clue about machines that fly.
