{"id":157184,"date":"2016-02-08T13:28:14","date_gmt":"2016-02-08T07:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=157184"},"modified":"2016-02-12T00:47:10","modified_gmt":"2016-02-11T19:17:10","slug":"ranil-does-a-mahinda-appoints-cousin-as-sri-lankan-high-commissioner-to-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/ranil-does-a-mahinda-appoints-cousin-as-sri-lankan-high-commissioner-to-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"Ranil Does A Mahinda: Appoints Cousin As Sri Lankan High Commissioner To UK"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prime Minister <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Ranil+Wickremesinghe&amp;x=9&amp;y=5\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Ranil Wickremesinghe<\/span><\/a>, appears to be flouting his own election pledges in his attempt to appoint his cousin Amari M. Wijewardene as the new Sri Lankan High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_157183\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/ranil-does-a-mahinda-appoints-cousin-as-sri-lankan-high-commissioner-to-uk\/amari-wijewardene\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-157183\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-157183\" class=\"size-full wp-image-157183\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Amari-Wijewardene.jpg\" alt=\"Amari Wijewardene\" width=\"190\" height=\"144\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-157183\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amari Wijewardene<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Wickremesinghe, who came to power promising to wipe out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=nepotism&amp;x=7&amp;y=5\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">nepotism<\/span><\/a>, and promote good governance, transparency and accountability, has bypassed much more qualified foreign service officials, and has instead proposed the name of his cousin, who is Chairman &amp; Managing Director at the Swadeshi Industrial Works PLC.<\/p>\n<p>Her name has been nominated to the Parliamentary Working Committee on Senior Portfolios as the new High Commissioner to UK.<\/p>\n<p>She is also cousin to Ruwan Wijewardene, the State Minister of Defence.<\/p>\n<p>Last November, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/nepotism-bug-hits-foreign-ministry\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Manoj Warnapala, the son-in-law of Austin Fernando<\/span><\/a>, advisor and confidante of President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Maithripala+Sirisen&amp;x=10&amp;y=6\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Maithripala Sirisena<\/span><\/a> and the Governor of the Eastern Province, was appointed as a consul to the Sri Lankan High Commission in UK.<\/p>\n<p>Since the resignation of former High Commissioner, Dr. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Chris+Nonis&amp;x=11&amp;y=4\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Chris Nonis<\/span><\/a>, in September 2014, the post has remained vacant. There is also no Deputy High Commissioner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":157183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2186,1,6969,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-featured-news","category-news","category-popular-stories","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ranil Does A Mahinda: Appoints Cousin As Sri Lankan High Commissioner To UK - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/ranil-does-a-mahinda-appoints-cousin-as-sri-lankan-high-commissioner-to-uk\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ranil Does A Mahinda: Appoints Cousin As Sri Lankan High Commissioner To UK - 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