Favoured Son The Navy’s Shame?
Yoshitha Rajapaksa
by Nirmala Kannangara-Sunday, March 20, 2016
Following questions raised about Navy Lieutenant Yoshitha Kanishka Rajapaksa’s qualifications to enter the Sri Lanka Navy, it has now been revealed that Rajapaksa’s Ordinary Level and Advanced Level education certificates have gone missing from his personal file.
The questionable procedures adopted in recruiting Yoshitha Rajapaksa (NRX 2431) and selecting him for foreign training shows it is a clear deviation from the generally accepted Navy criteria. According to higher Naval officials, a proper judicial process has to be carried out to ascertain whether there had been any violation of fundamental rights of other officers who were deprived of foreign training because of Rajapaksa and the procedure adopted by the Navy.
Meanwhile, Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda, Navy Commander during the time Yoshitha Rajapaksa was enlisted, has come under fire for calling for applications for the post of Officer Cadets for the 45th intake from GCE A/L in Science, Arts and Commerce streams which is alleged to be a clear deviation from the general practice in Navy history.
“Officer Cadets for the executive branch are generally enlisted to the Navy from GCE A/L Science or Mathematics streams and relevant GCE O/L qualifications. So then, how did Admiral Karannagoda follow a completely different qualification criterion in 2006?” highly reliable Navy sources said on condition of anonymity.
According to the sources, the Navy is now silent on the subject of enlisting unqualified candidates to the Sri Lanka Navy as, for each enlistment, it is the Commander of the Navy that approves the qualification criteria to call applications.
