Foreign Ministry insults the Parliament
Dec 17, 2015
When the Foreign Ministry vote was taken up for debate in Parliament on December 11 Friday morning Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera was not present in the chamber and no official from the Foreign Minister was present in the officials box. Later the Foreign Minister in reply to a question by the JVP Leader said that it was due to a miscommunication that such a thing happened.
It is surprising Samaraweera who has been in the Parliament from 1989 and has been a Minister for most part of it did not take the vote seriously. Investigations carried out by Lanka news Web confirmed that correct information has been given to the Foreign Ministry and it was the Ministry’s fault for officials not coming at the correct time. A Parliament official said ‘we gave details the Ministers and the Ministries well on time’ and added ‘this is the first time that the Minister and all officials have been absent when a Ministry vote is taken up. It is an insult to the Parliament.’
A Foreign Ministry official said ‘Foreign Secretary was more excited about going to Vatican with the President and forgot about the Ministry vote.’ We at Lanka News Web respecting all religions will not comment about it but will point out that the responsibility of the job should not be forgotten by the officials.
Investigations revealed that arranging the visit to Parliament for the Ministry vote every year is handled by the Director General Administration of the Ministry. All these years successive DGs informed the Ministry officials, arranged transport and coordinated with the Parliament staff and made sure the officials were present on time. But this year the newly appointed DG H.G. Pushpakumara has messed it up. Pushpakumara was recalled from Melbourne where he was serving as consul General because there were lot of allegations against him. A promoted clerk in the Administrative Service he has served in the Ministry for a some time. Usually a SLAS officer will have only one or a maximum of two postings and then goes back to work in another Ministry. There were lot of allegations against Pushpakumara while serving in the Ministry. Somehow he managed to get round the senior officials and had three postings with twice to Australia depriving other SLAS officers of an opportunity to go on postings. After being recalled Samaraweera and Wagiswara without sending him out of the Ministry decided to give him a promotion and make him Director General and went further to appoint him as head of the Procurement Committee to the surprise of many. A Ministry official told News Web ‘Pushpakumara who has a bad track record has been the darling of many Ministers and Secretaries for obvious reasons. He will do all what they ask him to do while looking after himself. So no action will be taken for this serious lapse.’
In another country the Minister will resign and disciplinary action will be taken against the officers for such a serious incident. But not in Sri Lanka. According to a Foreign Ministry official the incident is already forgotten and is taken very lightly with no one being responsible. Under the Yahapalana Government the Foreign Ministry is going from one mess to the other with good officers sidelined and questionable appointments being the order of the day.
