Lankan officials at Olympics deserve Gold Medals - Gayantha

by Zacki Jabbar-July 30, 2012,

Sri Lankan officials, at the ongoing London Olympics, should be given gold medals for being the highest contingent at the games, percentage wise, the UNP said yesterday.

Only seven athletes were representing the country, but thirty officials had accompanied them, the UNP’s Media Spokesman Gayantha Karunathillaka MP, told a news conference in Colombo.

He said that the fiasco being enacted in London was nothing but an extension of the ‘Mahinda Chintana’ which propagates the squandering of public funds.

The sports officials attending the Olympics are following the example set by the President and his jumbo Cabinet, who frequently travelled abroad on tax payers’ money, while the poor were struggling to make ends meet, Karuanthillake observed.

The government, he said, had instituted disciplinary action against some Pradeshiya Sabha members while ignoring the corrupt and lawless conduct of persons holding higher positions.

The MP noted that the "Big Fish" were allowed to go scot free, since they have the capability of embarrassing the Rajapaksa regime.

After the war had ended President Mahinda Rajapaksa said that the country would occupy the first three places in precedence. But, today the first place has gone to high interest loans, the second to imposition of taxes and the third position to lawlessness, Karuanthillake said adding that the nation had been mortgaged for generations to come and it were future generations who would have to pay the price and not the President, his Ministers or officials who were the decision makers.