Citizen Silva, your comment on Mr. Kumarasinghe is unfair

Dear Citizen Silva, I appreciate the forthrightness and good sense of your articles. But your comment on P.G. Kumarasinghe, President Maithripala Sirisena’s brother, in the Sunday Times of January 7, was not fair.

You cannot equate the appointment of P.G. Kumarasinghe as Chairman SLT, with that of Nishantha Wickremasinghe, President Rajapaksha’s brother-in-law. In all fairness, Mr. Kumarasinghe is a qualified and experienced professional administrator with two MBAs. An MBA is a qualifier for promotion in the public sector and the private sector. Mr. Wickremasinghe has no qualification for a high executive position whatsoever. Is it a fair comparison?

I am non-partisan between these two factions. I am for objectivity and fair-mindedness.

One must remember that P.G. Kumarasinghe was previously deprived of a promotion just because he was President Sirisena’s brother. You are old enough to remember what Sir John Kotelawala once said when he was criticised for appointing his nephew Dixon as Director, Civil Aviation: “He shouldn’t be deprived of his appointment because he is my nephew.”

Mr. Kumarasinghe is a grassroots man. I am too and I presume you are too since you are Citizen Silva Patrick Jayasuriya Maharagama