Exposé: Worst Of MR-Sajin Cronies Still Run Foreign Ministry
March 20, 2015
In a tragicomic turn of events the worst cronies of the former regime and in particular the cabal that surrounded the corrupt and inept Monitoring Minister of the Foreign Ministry, Sajin Vass Gunawardena are still ruling the roost at the Ministry. In a supremely ironic twist Deputy Minister Ajith Perera, who championed good governance and accountability while in opposition has been compelled to defend the appointment of Kshenuka Seniwiratne, former Foreign Secretary and close confidant of MP Sajin Vass and PresidentMahinda Rajapaksa, as Sri Lanka’s new Ambassador to Thailand. The JVP and other political parties have raised concerns over this appointment.
Minister Samaraweera
Kshenuka Senewiratne
Senewiratne who has several family connections to the UNP went out of her way to prove her loyalties to the Rajapaksas’ during the previous regime. However she maintains a close personal friendship with President Chandrika Kumaratungaunder whose tenure Ms. Senewiratne served as Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to the UK. However in the Rajapaksa years Kshenuka Senewiratne shunned President Kumaratunga in an attempt to cater to the small minded egos of the Rajapaksa regime. Together with President Rajapaksa and MP Gunewardena, Kshenuka Senewiratne conspired to bring the professional foreign service to its knees, informed sources told Colombo Telegraph. Playing watchdog to the new Government in Sri Lanka the JVP has focused its criticism on Senewiratne’s alleged role in ‘Geneva Gate‘. As Colombo Telegraph exposed in April 7, 2012, during her stint as Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN in Geneva, Seniwiratne is accused of giving a contract to repair the official residence of the Ambassador in Geneva to a company linked to the LTTE. But meanwhile, her misdeeds and reign at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have been ignored. Colombo Telegraph has reliable information about how Senewiratne was actively involved in an attempt to eradicate the professional Foreign Service and recruit political appointees to the Ministry. Under-signing Mahinda Rajapaksa’s inferiority complex and his old animosity with the Foreign Service having once had to fight for the premiership with Lakshman Kadirgamar, Kshenuka Senewiratne ensured that competent Foreign Service officers were side-lined and harassed. Senewiratne and her able lieutenant Majindha Jayasinghe were proponents of the abolishment of the Foreign Service in favour of cabinet appointments as diplomats. The move was strongly championed by Sajin Vass Gunawardena who sought to amalgamate the Foreign Service with the Administrative Service. Senewiratne strongly backed the plans. She also backed the recruitment of a group of Sajin Vass lackeys who were later tabbed “CHOGM babies” who new Minister of Foreign MinisterMangala Samaraweera said were the unemployable offspring of political and business cronies. As exclusively revealed by Colombo Telegraph among these ‘CHOGM Babies’ recruited by MP Sajin Vass at Rs. 70,000 per month – were the daughters of then Opposition MP Rosy Senanayake and JKH Chairman Susantha Ratnayake. These children, relatives and mistresses of politicians were paid more than any Foreign Service officer, given vehicles for their personal use and even allowed to misuse their official positions to make money out of CHOGM contracts without any hindrance. Kshenuka Senewiratne even tasked them vital issues of national interest, sending some of these unqualified individuals to Geneva to defend Sri Lanka at the Human Rights council.It was due to Senevirathne’s empowerment that Sajin Vass Gunawardena, an uneducated wharf clerk, managed to run the foreign ministry as his own fiefdom. In such an example, as late as in November 2014 Senevirathne demanded a letter of explanation from the Executive Director of the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute for what she claimed to be an anti-government article written by the officer.Asanga Abeyagoonasekera the former head of the Kadirgamar centre laments how he had been kicked out and how Kshenuka Senewiratne has been given an Ambassadorial post. The article in question had raised the 18th Amendment and term limits of the president. These of course are in addition to one of the most pathetic incidents in the Ministry’s history when Sajin Vass Gunawardena publicly assaulted the sitting High Commissioner of Sri Lanka to London, Chris Nonis in order to defend Kshenuka Senewiratne. Later Senewiratne made officers attached to the London Mission to write petitions against Nonis and all those who were present at the dinner in New York at which Nonis was assaulted attested that they had not seen any one getting assaulted. The depths to which Senewiratne brought the Foreign Ministry, during her short one year tenure, as Secretary is unparalleled in history. During the presidential election season between November 2014-January 2015 Senewiratne created history by being spotted at a Mahinda Rajapaksa election rally in gross violation of the Establishment Code which governs the conduct of Public Servants.
