Performance, not pledges win elections today: Dullas

The era in which elections were won on pledges was over in Sri Lanka and elections could be won only on performance and policies today, Youth Affairs and Skills Development Minister Dullas Alahapperuma said.

Addressing a function held to distribute appointment letters to 107 instructors who had been recruited to serve at 38 training centres of the National Youth Services Council (NYSC) Minister Alahapperuma said he would never ask those new recruits to vote or help the UPFA. Minister Alahapperuma appealed to them to serve the government diligently and ac-

The cartoonists in the print media are mercilessly lampooning politicians with barrel bellies, ugly faces and foolish utterances as they have earned a bad name

cording to their conscience as the public service had come under heavy criticism for inefficiency and low productivity.

“There is an idiom that says poverty is like a cow without a tail. You who became public servants from today

must realise that the public service without honesty and integrity is also a cow without a tail,” Minister Alahapperuma stressed.

The cartoonists in the print media are mercilessly lampooning politicians with barrel bellies, ugly faces and foolish utterances as they have earned a bad name.

This must come to an end and politicians must behave themselves in an exemplary manner. They must not give wrong signals to the public.

In the same way the responsibility of public servants was to show that they were not lotus eaters. The new recruits would take the initiative in this respect.

The NYSC has been tasked to brighten the lives of the neglected section or the failed section of the youth population.

Through 38 training centres under the NYSC the Youth Affairs and Skills Development Ministry had faced the challenge successfully.