Financial Times

Jobless PA
What are Personal Assistants to ministers for? Work for their masters or find jobs for the catchers of their masters! The following letter sent to us by a reader provides some clues:

"I recently visited the office of a minister and my 30 minutes there was a revelation. The officer I went to meet was the PA (Personnel Assistant) to the minister. All he did during the entire time I was there was calling people and receiving calls regarding jobs for people who had worked for the UPFA.

The ironic part was that the jobs had to be in the private sector - private banks and so on. There was another shifty looking character who had come to put a deal through. He left inviting the PA to come and visit his office."

Taken for a ride
Journalists including photograpers arrived at the BMICH the other day to cover an event by General Sales Company to launch a new Chinese luxury bus imported for local use.

Two buses were parked just outside the new Sirimavo Bandaranaike Convention Hall and the event was to coincide with the South Asia Travel Mart.

But presidential security officials told the organizers to take the buses elsewhere because President Chandrika Kumaratunga was attending a function at the BMICH. So the buses were driven to the company office at Station Road, Kollupitiya with the journalists inside being "taken for a ride."

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