No minibars, no limousines, no blue films; Maithri takes ‘Yaha Palanaya’ to New York!
Sep 11, 2015
President Maithripala Sirisena has barred the Sri Lankan delegation accompanying him to the United Nations General Assembly this time from using minibars or limousines, or watching blue films, say sources at the Sri Lankan embassy in Washington.
The president has given clear instructions to ambassador Prasad Kariyawasam to book a middle class hotel for the Lankan delegation and make arrangements for them to fulfill their intended mission without letting them waste public money to play havoc unlike in the past, said the sources.
Last year and in the preceding years, the then president Mahinda Rajapaksa took along with him all his family members, relatives and cronies, numbering more than 100 persons to, New York and booked one storey of Waldorf Astoria Hotel. The room booked for him alone cost 10,000 US dollars per night. Ten limousines were on service for the Rajapaksa family and their cronies. The minibar and blue film watching cost of the then foreign affairs ministry supervising MP Sajin Vaas Gunawardena during the tour was higher than the cost for his room. That money was spent not from the bank accounts of the Rajapaska family members or Sajin Vaas, but from the money of the taxpaying Sri Lankan people.
The collapse of the Rajapaksa regime began after their New York tour in September last year. During that tour, the drunken Sajin Vaas slapped the then high commissioner for Britain Dr. Chris Nonis. That slap changed the destiny of a country. Sajin Vaas has been in remand custody for months now. Nonis is back at his business work, while Mahinda Rajapaksa, who advised him, ‘Take it easy, Chris’, is today living at Medamulana as an average MP.
The then health minister Maithripala Sirisena, who had been watching all these unfolding like in a movie, is the president today. Going by the limitations he has imposed for the tour this year, it looks like he has learnt a lesson from what had befallen Rajapaksa. The Sri Lankan delegation led by president Sirisena is due to arrive in New York on September 23. The president will address the UNGA on September 24.
