{"id":207537,"date":"2020-01-17T14:31:11","date_gmt":"2020-01-17T09:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=207537"},"modified":"2020-01-17T17:13:43","modified_gmt":"2020-01-17T11:43:43","slug":"bonanza-continues-at-state-expense-for-gotas-californian-buddies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/bonanza-continues-at-state-expense-for-gotas-californian-buddies\/","title":{"rendered":"Bonanza Continues At State Expense For Gota\u2019s Californian Buddies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gotabaya Rajapaksa is continuing to appoint his Californian friends to high ranking positions in his Government, with the latest appointment of Raja Edirisuriya as Chairman of the Urban\u00a0Settlement Development Authority.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_207539\" style=\"width: 904px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Raja-Edirisuriya-Gotabaya-Rajapaksa.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-207539\" class=\" wp-image-207539\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Raja-Edirisuriya-Gotabaya-Rajapaksa.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"894\" height=\"631\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Raja-Edirisuriya-Gotabaya-Rajapaksa.jpeg 745w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Raja-Edirisuriya-Gotabaya-Rajapaksa-300x212.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 894px) 100vw, 894px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-207539\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Raja Edirisuriya, Army Colonel Sarathchandra, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Upul Dharmadasa, Army Colonel Handapangoda and Malraj de Silva.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Edirisuriya\u2019s appointment follows the nomination of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Malraj+De+Silva\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">Malraj De Silva<\/span><\/strong><\/a> as Sri Lanka\u2019s Ambassador to UAE and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Upul+Dharmadasa\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">Upul Dharmadasa<\/span><\/strong><\/a> as Chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority. Both De Silva and Dharmadasa, like Edirisuriya are both Californian residents.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Raja-Edirisuriya.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-207553\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Raja-Edirisuriya.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"811\" height=\"493\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Raja-Edirisuriya.jpeg 811w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Raja-Edirisuriya-300x182.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Raja-Edirisuriya-768x467.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 811px) 100vw, 811px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When the Rajapaksa family was last in power, Edirisuriya held the post of Ambassador to Brazil. During his tenure he was implicated in a fraud involving the purchase of a building to house the Sri Lankan Embassy to Brazil. He was unable to travel to Sri Lanka after the Rajapaksa regime was defeated, fearing arrest over the alleged fraud. He is also implicated in a fraud of Rs 1.4 million while he served as Chairman of the State Engineering Corporation.\u00a0<strong><em>(By Janakie\u00a0Mediwake)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":207539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2186,1,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-featured-news","category-news","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bonanza Continues At State Expense For Gota\u2019s Californian Buddies - 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\/bonanza-continues-at-state-expense-for-gotas-californian-buddies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bonanza Continues At State Expense For Gota\u2019s Californian Buddies - 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