brand logo

Kingsly denies knowledge of P.B. resignation plans 

15 Dec 2021

 
  • Presidential Spokesman says no such plan
  • Ministers intensify calls for removal of President’s Secretary
  BY Buddhika Samaraweera Despite speculation that President’s Secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundera would submit his resignation amidst increasing demands from several ministers for his resignation or removal, Presidential Spokesman Kingsly Rathnayaka has said that he has no knowledge of any such plans. When contacted by The Morning yesterday (15) to inquire whether Dr. Jayasundera was preparing to step down, Presidential Spokesman Kingsly Rathnayaka denied the reports to the effect and said that there is no such plan according to his knowledge.  A Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) Government Parliamentarian told The Morning yesterday that Dr. Jayasundera was strongly opposed by the members of the Cabinet of Ministers at the Cabinet meeting held on Monday (13). It is also widely speculated that he (Dr. Jayasundera) will hand over his resignation letter to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who has returned to Sri Lanka from a private visit to Singapore. Dr. Jayasundera was not available for comment. Meanwhile, there are reports that current Irrigation Ministry Secretary Anura Dissanayake is to be appointed as the President’s Secretary following the possible resignation of Dr. Jayasundera. Dissanayake was however not available for comment on the matter. Several ministers, most prominently Trade Minister Dr. Bandula Gunawardana, have publicly said that there exists officials who wield more authority than the Cabinet and work towards hampering their ministries’ work as well as the vision of the Government and the President. It is widely believed that they were referring to the President’s Secretary. Earlier, the heads of a number of state-owned institutions expressed annoyance over a series of lengthy meetings convened by Dr. Jayasundera in November 2021 which they claimed served no real purpose. Several heads of state institutions, speaking to The Morning on condition of anonymity at the time, said that the said meetings were unnecessarily long, and have proven to be pointless as Dr. Jayasundera did not take any action with regard to any of the proposals made by the heads of the institutions. According to one state institution head, the first of the said series of meetings which had been convened by Dr. Jayasundera on 1 November, was “useless”. “On 1 November, there was a Zoom meeting with Dr. Jayasundera. He started the meeting and made a speech for about 15 to 20 minutes. The meeting was useless and all we, the institution heads, had to do was to listen to what he was saying. We were already aware of what he was saying during the meeting and it was therefore a waste of our time,” he added. According to him, Dr. Jayasundera, during the meeting, had been stating that certain heads of state institutions have been able to make their institutions profit-making institutions, while others have failed to do so. “In addition, he said that as a country, we should make our best efforts to make our institutions profit-making ones,” he said. The Morning also learnt that although the heads of certain state institutions had attempted to submit their proposals to Dr. Jayasundera on the steps that need to be taken to make their institutions profitable, the latter had instructed them to discuss the said proposals with the relevant subject ministers. “If he is not ready to listen to our proposals, why does he convene such meetings? It is just a waste of our time,” one state institution head said.  The participants also noted that Dr. Jayasundera calls for reports into the progress of the state institutions and that if progress is to be informed to him in this manner, he should also listen to their proposals. Dr. Jayasundera had also convened two other such meetings on 2 and 3 November 2021.


More News..