Commodore MBNA Premarathan was previously known in the Sri Lanka Navy. He was an officer in the Navy Volunteer Force and retired from military service a couple of weeks ago. Commodore Premarathan, who retired, is now the Commissioner General of Excise Department.
The Excise Department, which has a history of one hundred and thirteen years, was previously headed by a senior officer of the Sri Lanka Administrative Service. Or an officer of the Excise Department.
Retired Commodore MBNA Premarathan, who did not belong to either of those systems, parachuted into the Excise Department headquarters in Rajagiriya last week. He was appointed as the Commissioner General of Excise through a cabinet paper presented by the President, Finance Minister Anura Kumara Dissanayake.
The Finance Ministry under the President has three main pillars. They are the Customs Department, the Excise Department and the Inland Revenue Department. These three departments are the main source of revenue for the government. Two or three weeks ago, the President also made a political appointment to the posts of Secretary to the Ministry of Finance and Secretary to the Treasury, which are the heads of these three institutions.
He removed his Deputy Minister, Dr. Harshana Suriyapperuma, from his ministerial post and appointed him as the Secretary to the Ministry of Finance.
The vacant ministerial post was appointed to a person who was not on the national list of the NPP. He was Nishantha Jayaweera, Additional Secretary to the President, who had served as the Acting Commissioner General of Excise for a time.
It is a politically immoral appointment. Democratic institutions have even gone to court against the appointment of such individuals as ministers without a people’s mandate.
Why did the President, who made a political appointment to the post of Secretary to the Ministry of Finance, follow the same path and appoint a retired Navy Commodore to the post of Excise Commissioner?
It should not be forgotten that the people who voted for it did not expect such political appointments from a National People’s Power government.
All previous governments have indeed made political appointments to the public service. This political appointment is also part of the seventy-six-year curse that the NPP raised during the last election campaign.
The results of such political appointments are still visible today. The path to the destruction of Sri Lankan Airlines was paved from the day President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s brother-in-law, Nishantha Wickremesinghe, assumed the chairmanship.
Neither Mahinda Rajapaksa nor Ranil Wickremesinghe made a political appointment to the more than century-old Excise Department for so long. Now the National People’s Power government has accomplished that task and has become a part of the curse itself.
When there were hundreds of retired Commodores in the Sri Lanka Navy, what special qualification did M.B.N.A. Premaratne have to become the Commissioner General of Excise?
To find the answer to that question, one must examine the CV of the new Commissioner General of Excise. He was born in Thambuttegama, Makulewa. Thambuttegama is the village of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake.
M.B.N.A. Premaratne, who went to school in Thambuttegama, entered the University of Kelaniya in the academic year 1991-92.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake also entered the University of Kelaniya in the same academic year. Anura Kumara studied for a Bachelor of Science degree. Premaratne studied for a Bachelor’s degree in Economics. After his Bachelor of Arts degree, he obtained a Master of Arts degree.
The two are university friends.
After university education, he joined the Sri Lanka Navy Volunteer Corps. He retired from active duty on the 23rd, having completed his fifty-five years. Commodore Premaratne is married to Card card-carrying NPP member, Senior Professor Wasantha Subasinghe.
Before her husband, her name was the first to be discussed in the political field. She was a candidate on the National People’s Power National List. She also received her university education at the University of Kelaniya. She worked in the Department of Sociology at the University of Kelaniya and was appointed as the Vice-Chancellor of the Yakkala Wickramarachchi Ayurveda University after the National People’s Power government was formed. The President also has the power to appoint the Vice-Chancellor of a university.
The President did not stop at appointing a candidate from his party’s national list, as the Vice Chancellor. She was also appointed as the Chairperson of the Institute of Social Development under the new government.
It was not only Senior Professor Wasantha Subasinghe, but also a professor who had held press conferences supporting the National People’s Power during the election period was appointed as the Vice Chancellor of the University of Colombo by the President.
The appointment of the Commissioner General of Excise was not the first time that the government led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake gave jobs to its cronies. It will not be the last appointment either.
The National People’s Power led by the JVP, strongly criticized the MPs and ministers for making their cronies and political supporters the chairmen of corporations in this way. The National People’s Power, which criticized this, gave out political appointments in droves in the first round itself upon taking power.
The government that came to power, claiming to be politicizing state media institutions, appointed its own cronies as heads of media institutions. The Arts Council and its sub-councils were filled in droves with artists who were in the the platform of the National People’s Power in the last election.Or those who helped the NPP with words.
In short, as the chairman of the National Arts Council, the National List MP candidate of the National People’s Power, Keerthi Welisarage was appointed. No one who took the stage of the NPP, including him, representing various fields, became winners.
Retired Air Vice Marshal Sampath Thuiyakontha, who was at the forefront of the National People’s Power’s retired tri-services team, was appointed as the Secretary of the Ministry of Defense. Before him, the Secretary of the Ministry of Defense was retired Major General Kamal Gunaratne, who was on Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s election platform.
Next, Kamal Gunaratne, who helped him politically and wrote a book about him, was appointed as the Secretary of the Ministry of Defense by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. By appointing Sampath Thuiyakontha as the Secretary of the Ministry of Defense under him, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake showed that there is no difference in appointments between him and Gotabaya.
Not only that, as the Secretary of the Ministry of Public Security, retired Senior DIG Ravi Seneviratne, was appointed. He was the head of the retired police corps of the National People’s Power. It is true that he was a distinguished officer in the police. However, his primary qualification for the position of Secretary was to be on the to stage of the National People’s Power, not his distinguished police history.
Retired Navy Commander Admiral Sirimevan Ranasinghe was appointed as the Chairman of the Ports Authority under the National People’s Power government. Although he was a leader in his field, he did not get the position of Chairman of the Ports Authority because he knew about the sea. If that is the case, there are about a dozen retired Navy commanders alive who know about the sea. Among them, Admiral Sirimevan Ranasinghe became the Chairman of the Ports because he represented the retired military collective of the National People’s Power.
The Director General of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission under the President is retired Air Vice Marshal Bandula Herath, a supporter of the National People’s Power.
The government appointed retired Brigadier Senarath Kohona, a supporter of the National People’s Power, as the Chairman of the Ranaviru Seva Authority. He was an officer who served in the Army Volunteer Corps. Until now, retired officers from the regular army were appointed to the Ranaviru Seva Authority.
Retired Major General Sampath Kotuwegedara was appointed as the Director General of the Disaster Management Center under the National People’s Power government. He is also a supporter of the National People’s Power.
The chairman of the Airport and Aviation Company is retired Air Chief Marshal Harsha Abeywickrama, the Commander of the Air Force. During the Mahinda Rajapaksa era, the position was held by retired Colonel Prasanna Wickramasuriya. He is a cousin of Mahinda Rajapaksa. Prasanna’s brother Jaliya Wickramasuriya was the Sri Lankan Ambassador to the United States at that time. Another cousin, Udayanga Weeratunga, was the Sri Lankan Ambassador to Russia.
The JVP slammed these appointments at the time. It alleged that the Foreign Service was filled with political favoritism and nepotism. After the new government was formed, fifteen ambassadors and high commissioners were immediately called to Sri Lanka before their terms of office ended.
Instead of the ambassadors and high commissioners summoned for political reasons, the National People’s Power government appointed friends of the party. When the government came to power, the Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Pakistan was retired Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne. He was a senior four-star officer. He was an officer who held the highest position in the three armed forces of Sri Lanka, the Chief of Defence Staff. The new government called him back and appointed retired Rear Admiral Fred Seneviratne, who was a supporter of the National People’s Power. He was a two-star officer.
Former Navy Commander Admiral Nishantha Ulugetenne served as Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Cuba. The new government removed him from his post and appointed Mahinda Ratnayake, who had lost the election after contesting under the NPP.
The government appointed one of its friends, Professor Pivithuru Janaka Kumara, as Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Japan. No matter which government comes to power, the High Commissioner to the UK is appointed by a senior foreign service officer or someone with experience in foreign affairs.
When the government came to power, the former Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama was serving as the Sri Lankan High Commissioner to the UK. The new government called him back to Sri Lanka and appointed Nimal Senadheera, who is said to have been doing a menial job while he was in England for further studies.
The new government not only appointed its political allies to key positions, but also arbitrarily removed those who held those positions in order to appoint its allies to the positions. Two or three people went to court against this. Finally, the court ordered that they be appointed to the same positions as before.
The President’s attempt to appoint an outsider to the position of Auditor General was thwarted because the Constitutional Council did not approve it. The officer who was trained to make the appointment was also a graduate of the University of Kelaniya.
In short, the highest position in the public service, the Secretary to the President, is also a friend who studied with the President at the University of Kelaniya. He was a junior officer in the Customs Department. During his time at the Customs, his sir was the Director General of Customs, Sarath Nonis. Now the Director General of Customs, or the Secretary to the President, is the junior officer who served under him, Dr. Nandika Sanath Kumanayake. The main qualification for his appointment as Secretary to the President, who had no experience in public administration, was that he was a university student of the President.
( Adopted from a longer Sinhala language article from Mihiri Fonseka of Weekend Auna