Govt MPs freebie aboard ship rocks the boat in Parliament
The Sri Lankan Ports Authority has rolled out the red carpet and hosted Government MPs and their families to an exclusive night of revelry at sea aboard two of its dredging ships.
The ports Authority had played host and footed the bill at the request of Ports State Minister Premalal Jayasekera. His daughter, as his Co-ordinating secretary, had sent a letter last Monday conveying this request, and had even asked the Ports Authority to supply food and drink free of charge to the party guests on Tuesday night.
Around 50 MPs had been invited but only 25 or so had turned up at the Colombo Port.
A video, surreptitiously taken and which went viral last Wednesday, shows SLPP leader Mahinda Rajapaksa striding up the gangway and being the first to board the ship, trailed by a host of MPs, including Wild Life Minister Pavithra, attired in a chic black evening kurta. It further shows the scene inside the ship, where the MPs are seen gathered around tables imbibing food and drink, while in the background foot-tapping baila music can be heard.
Last Tuesday night’s bash at sea had cost the tax payers an estimated 5 million bucks, with the fuel alone for the sea cruise costing over Rs. 3 lacks, claimed the ports’ trade union chief, Niroshan Gorakanage.
After a storm broke out in Parliament last Thursday that public money had been spent on Government MPs to have a ball aboard a ship, it was denied by the State Minister Premalal Jayasekera who hastily held a press conference later in the day to insist that what was held aboard two state vessels was no party but an ‘inspection tour of the port’s progress’.
He said: ‘During the budget debate MPs said in return for voting for the Ports Ministry budget, they should be taken on an inspection tour of the port and specifically shown the dredging operation. A video secretly taken in a high security zone has given the wrong impression that state funds were used to stage a party. This was no party but an inspection tour. I paid for the entire tour out of my own funds. The state only paid for the fuel which was some 300,000 rupees. Apart from the fuel I paid for all.’
Then pointing to the same video, he had found offensive, he says, ‘this shows some bottles probably planted. So what, even if I had given, I can give anything I want since I paid the bill except for the fuel.’
How true. My party, my drink. And how so fortunate to have him returned from prison exile after the Appeal Court quashed on March 31, 2022 the Ratnapura High Court’s conviction and death sentence passed on him on July 31, 2020 for the murder of a UNP lifelong supporter who was shot dead in 2015 while decorating a stage where Yahapalana candidate Sirisena was scheduled to address a mass rally in January 2015. After the prison doors were legally unlocked in 2022, he was appointed as State Minister of Ports by President Ranil Wickremesinghe in September that same year.
And where was the Cabinet Minister of Ports while all the ruckus was going on in his domain? Nodding off as usual, perhaps, to the beat of his own snores somewhere else, blissfully oblivious that a swinging inspection cruise was taking place in outer port?