Isn’t it awesome how President Mahinda Rajapaksa picks the best men for the best jobs?

A nation being bamboozled

Namini Wijedasa Writes

Isn’t it awesome how President Mahinda Rajapaksa picks the best men for the best jobs? That chump who mindlessly drove a budget airline to the ground has just been made Galle district organiser for the UPFA.
Some people are even saying that Sajin de Vass Gunewardene will be chief minister of the southern province after elections are held there. Imagine that? People with buckets of talent are going to waste while Sajin gets another chance. This time, he can drive an entire province into insolvency.
(Actually, these moves would make perfect sense if you warp your mind just enough to understand them).
An ordinary person of average intelligence could assume that Sajin — who made a monumental mess of Mihin Lanka — would quickly be banished to some insignificant village to spend the rest of his life weaving coir rope. He had started up an airline with no starter capital, no aircraft and no business plan. He later managed to secure some rickety, inefficient planes and a bit of money — and promptly rendered the venture bankrupt.

Mihin Lanka was in the red

Parliament was recently told that tender procedures had not been followed in the leasing of Mihin’s three aircraft. By the time Sajin stepped down as chief executive officer, Mihin Lanka was billions of rupees in the red, its employees were complaining that their salaries were not being paid, the lessors took back the aircraft Sajin had leased on terribly costly terms, nobody wanted to fly them and the company was a dead duck.
But the Rajapaksas never give up, especially when it concerns an airline that has affectionately been named ‘Mihin’. The president has hired a few other people to do the job Sajin mucked up and told them (loosely) to “get the damn thing flying again”. And we hear they are doing a pretty bad job. The new chairman Raja Edirisuriya recently resigned after saying he cannot work with the other executives.
Clearly, this is not a country for ordinary people with average understanding. Sajin was not condemned to a life of coir-weaving. He was not even reprimanded for the colossal waste of money that he had been directly responsible for. He got to keep his presidential advisor post and he will now lead the UPFA in the Galle district. One day, he will write a book: ‘The Idiot’s Guide to Bamboozling a Nation’. And we will all be proud to know him.
Bestseller
We learn that Ranil Wickremesinghe is also compiling a bestseller: ‘How to win an Election, conceptually’. Another set of provincial council elections is scheduled for April 25 and the UNP will bite the dust again. Afterwards, the same tired UNP mouthpieces will host press conferences during which they will valiantly attempt to find plausible excuses for yet another inglorious electoral rout.