Basil Rajapaksa deploys government employees for UPFA campaign in North

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 September 2013, 04:59 GMT]
While the Sri Lankan presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa is spearheading the election campaign for the occupying UPFA regime in Jaffna, all the government workers under his ministry, including ‘Samurdhi’ officials, who have access to the grassroots and unemployed graduates, who have been provided trainee appointments on a 10,000 rupee monthly salary, are instructed to work for Rajapaksa’s ruling UPFA, carrying out election campaign among the masses for the coming 7 days starting from Friday till 20th September in violation of the rules for a free and fair election. At least 40 Sinhala ‘Samurdhi’ officials from the South have been brought to Jaffna to supervise the poverty alleviation Tamil workers in Jaffna deployed in the election campaign, civil sources in Jaffna told TamilNet. 

‘Samurdhi’ is a poverty alleviation program originally begun by the UNP regime on the advice and guidelines of the IMF and World Bank.

There are around 735 ‘Samurdhi’ officials in Jaffna district alone. Of these, 318 were given appointments just one month ahead of the NPC elections. Most of them had to pay bribe of 700,000 each to secure the employment. The 417 officials already employed were persons close to SL military or the EPDP. 

Unemployed graduates on trainee appointments in Jaffna district alone number around 1,200 persons. There are more than 4,000 graudate trainees in the entire Northern province. All of them are now instructed to campaign for the UPFA in the province. 

While SL ministers Basil Rajapaksa and Douglas Devananda fully utilize the public resources to conduct election campaign for the UPFA, the colonial governor of the SL State has been fully deploying the resources of the provincial council to conduct election campaign in favour of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s UPFA alliance. 

The SL military occupying the country of Eezham Tamils has also been campaigning for UPFA. 

The Tamil National Alliance has objected against the exploitation taking place in the North. 

The SL ministers and the SL governor have vowed to woo voters for the UPFA challenging the Tamil National Alliance, which is set to secure an overwhelming majority in the provincial council elections in the North.