What is happening at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs?

 

Tuesday, 27 January 2015 

Although Mangala Samaraweera assumed duties as the Foreign Affairs Minister of the new government his Ministry is still functioning as if G L Peiris is the Foreign Minister. Mr. Samaraweera has no control over the activities of Foreign Ministry. According to senior officials of the Foreign Service there are few main reasons behind this. Some of these reasons are as follows:

1. Minister Samaraweera instructed Foreign Ministry officials to put their acts together when he met them after his appointment as the Minister. But things are happening quite contrary to his expectations. Though Mrs. Chitrangani Wagiswara, the most honest officer of the foreign service ever to serve in the Ministry, appointed as the Secretary, no Additional Secretaries have been appointed so far to assist her. These additional secretary appointments are deliberately delayed by Additional Secretary Abeyratne Rathnayake, an SLAS Officer, and Director General of Overseas Administration (DG/OAD) Mr. Jauhar. Both these officials are very loyal officers of former Secretary Ms. Kshenuka Senevirathne. Their aim is to cripple smooth functioning of the Ministry to portray that both new Minister and the Secretary are incapable of handling the affairs of the Ministry.

2. Rathnayake is an extremely corrupt officer. He was brought to the Foreign Ministry by Rohitha Bogollagama and continues to swindle public funds. Rathnayake is earning huge commissions from all Ministry purchases, vehicle hiring etc. He has helped Sajin Vass Gunawardana to earn millions during CHOGM 2013 and he himself got millions from various transactions. Ministry insiders say that vehicles, computers and furniture bought for CHOGM 2013 cannot be found in the Ministry now. Innocent officials hope that at least under this Yahapalanaya a rogue like Rathnayake will be transferred out of the Ministry or report to the Bribery Commission. Ironically, Rathnayake is in charge of the general administration and financial control of the Foreign Ministry!

3. Jauhar is very loyal to Kshenuka Senevirathne and they got together in Geneva and did business with LTTE operators. These have been exposed by media and JVP did a lot of work for this exposure. So, Senevirathne wants Jauhar to continue as DG/OAD so that all her cases can be prevented from any investigation by the new administration. The position of DG/OAD is the most important position after Secretary at the Ministry. OAD, is responsible for all appointments in the Foreign Service. Though Minister Samaraweera ordered Jauhar to submit lists of all political appointees to Sri Lanka Embassies it has been purposely delayed by him to avoid exposure of corrupt deals of MR government. Jauhar is continuously giving appointments to people nominated by G L Peiris even after the election and appointment of the new Minister. One such appointment is the clerical posting given to Ms. Kanthi Jayakody to Dubai. Jayakody has served under Jauhar and has not passed the examination. But Jauhar has recommended this appointment to G L Peiris and G L has approved it. Jauhar, under instructions of Kshenuka Senevirathne continues to disrupt functions of the Ministry. The new Minister is unaware of all these activities.

4. Even though Minister Samaraweera has ordered a revamp of the Ministry no action is being taken by Rathnayake and Jauhar to implement Minister's instructions. The important divisions are manned by loyalists of the former government. No restructuring of internal divisions taken place so far. Persons like Majintha Jayasinghe still holding the key position of Chief of Protocol. He is a spy of the previous government and now getting ready to travel overseas with President Maithripala Sirisena. Jayasinghe together with Kshenuka Senevirathne and Mahishini Colonne taking every step to disrupt activities of the Ministry and the new Secretary. These three officers have formed an axis of evil in the Foreign Ministry.

5. Another serious issue is that the appointment of large number of so called Development Officers (DOs) to the Ministry by the last government. All of these officers are from Hambantota and are members of Nil Balakaya. They have been selected by Sajin Vass to spy on foreign service officers. These DOs are not conversant in English, do not have skills to work in the Foreign Ministry. So they have become liabilities but have been attached to very important divisions. Senior officers say that this group of DOs should be transferred out as a matter of priority.

It is no secret that Minister Samaraweera is a key player of the new government and is preoccupied with 100 day programme activities. In addition he needs to travel abroad which consumes a lot of time. So, he does not have much time to invest to look into functions of the Ministry. Therefore, it will be prudent for Minister Samaraweera to entrust his Deputy Mr. Ajith P Perera to supervise all activities of the Foreign Ministry. If this does not happen Minister Samaraweera will face serious difficulties in managing his Ministry in the future.