Aiming
for the stars?
Public Administration Minister Sarath Amunugama arrived at the Don
Muang International Airport in Bangkok on Friday in the company
of popular film idol Geetha Kumarasinghe.
The
duo were all smiles when they cleared formalities. They were later
whisked off in a chauffeur-driven official vehicle of the Sri Lanka
Embassy in Thailand.
Secret
of success
Army Commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka shared a secret with his
school mates, friends and students at Dharmasoka College, Ambalangoda
last Thursday.
He
said he became Army Commander because of retired Major General M.D.
Fernando. He was instrumental and extended him all the assistance.
Maj. Gen. (retd.) Fernando was named senior Advisor on defence to
the President soon after Mahinda Rajapakse was voted to power.
Both Lt. Gen. Fonseka and Maj. Gen. (retd.) Fernando are former
students of the same college. The Army Commander was felicitated
by his alma mater at a function last Thursday.
Generosity
pays
Media personnel were invited to a dinner by Posts and Telecommunication
Minister D.M.Jayaratne recently. During the gathering they were
handed a printed sheet of paper. The journalists were told to fill
in their names and the name of the media institution they worked
for and they would all be entitled to a free mobile phone connection.
The minister must be well aware it does pay to have journalists
on one’s side and a little generosity would not go waste.
Fabricating
stories
Co-Cabinet spokesman Nimal Siripala De Silva was explaining to journalists
the story of how the LTTE concocted a story of a girl being abducted
by the security forces last week only to find that the girl in question
had been on a jaunt with her boy friend and her disappearance had
been a very willing one.
He said the story was an ‘athe roll’ by the LTTE and
journalists should be well aware of the term as there were some
in the profession who did the same thing quite often.
Big
shot busy with other matters
He was not the only state institution big shot who was busy with
a lady last week. The man in question from the state run Rupavahini
Corporation was getting cosy with a lady of the same institution
in a tinted glass car parked close to the Corporation premises.
Policemen
patrolling the area had found the parked vehicle suspicious and
knocked on the window.
The
man turned down the shutter and produced his official ID card. But
it was an old one which identified him as an employee of the former
President’s media unit. The policemen did not want to push
the matter further and decided to call it quits leaving the man
to busy himself once again. It’s little wonder state institutions
are in the condition they are in.
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