Video: Bringing inept persons into SLFS hurting country: Sobitha Thera

9 August 2014 12:35 am

The head of the National Movement for Social Justice (NMSJ), Ven. Maduluwawe Sobitha Thera, yesterday claimed that the Sri Lanka Foreign Service was a chaotic mess and that the wrong people were being awarded posts in the Foreign Service.

The Thera said that only intellectuals and those who have knowledge of the Foreign Service should be appointed as ambassadors if the country wanted to improve the image of the country and to be in a position to clarify and rectify the situation when there are allegations against it. “What has happened today is that accomplices of ministers, defeated politicians and criminals run the Foreign Service. For example, a former Police Chief who resigned after taking the responsibility for killing a protester at a rally in Katunayake was appointed as the ambassador to Brazil. The appointment, it seems, has been given to him as a punishment,” the thera said.

The thera also gave another instance of ineptitude that had crept into the appointments to the Foreign Service. He said that an individual who had been prevented by a court order from taking up a government job and exiled was recognized by him when he went to Abu Dhabi once, where he was the ambassador. Another officer responsible for the Ratupaswela killing had also been given a post in the Foreign Service,” he said.

The Thera claimed that no proper method had been followed when appointing these delegates to plum positions abroad and that these persons were ruining the image of the country abroad.

He said that while such shenanigans were continuing to bring the country down in the eyes of the international community the government had entrusted two companies based in the US the role of uplifting the country’s image. “That’s public funds that the government is wasting. That’s why we are raising our voice against it,” he said.

The Thera expressed these views at the launch of the website of the National Movement for Social Justice in Colombo.(Lahiru Pothmulla)

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