Mahinda responds to Ranjan’s accusations over luxury plane
Posted on February 26th, 2016
Courtesy Adaderana
The following release was issued with the signature of Sheron Samaranayake, on behalf of Rohan Welivita, the Media Secretary to the former President.
Full Release:
Parliamentarian Ranjan Ramanayake said at a press conference yesterday that former president Mahinda Rajapaksa had ordered a luxury cubicle worth four million US Dollars to be fixed onto aircraft used by him and that because of the agreement that has been signed, President Sirisena is unable to reverse the order. Mr. Ramanayake further stated that it was because of such abuse of power that former president Rajapaksa has had to face various commissions of inquiry today.
During the last presidential election campaign, President Rajapaksa was falsely accused of having ordered a private plane for himself. Now they say fairly truthfully, that this was only a kit to convert a part of an ordinary airliner into a luxury cubicle. These are VIP conversion kits which can be installed after removing several seats in commercial airliners and are supplied free as a complimentary accessory when new commercial passenger planes are ordered. Airbus Industries mentions a value for this conversion kit only to give the customer an idea of the value of the complimentary kit. The customer can’t ask for the money instead of the complimentary accessory.
Though Mr. Ramanayake said in his press conference that the President of the USA and the Sultan of Brunei also used similar units on their planes, that is not true. The American President travels in an official plane and the Sultan of Brunei has many private planes. They don’t travel on commercial airlines fitted with conversion kits.
It is not correct to say that the government cannot reverse the order for this VIP kit. Any customer can turn down the offer of a complimentary accessory if he does not need it. It seems to be that the present leaders now wish to avail themselves of the comfort of this VIP kit for their foreign travels and are trying to make excuses for accepting it by saying that the agreement prevented them from turning it down. All those who value yahapalanaya principles should ensure that the government flatly refuses to accept this complimentary VIP conversion kit and even if it is sent to Sri Lanka with the new planes, it should be returned to Airbus Industries forthwith.
February 26th, 2016 at 3:30 pm
SL is a poor country and ALL leaders so far could travel WITHOUT this type of cubicles. It was WRONG to order it and WRONG not to cancel it.
February 26th, 2016 at 7:16 pm
Lorenzo,
This came up last year.
Out of this , what is disgusting most to me is the lying by the President of Sri Lanka that a special luxury plane was ordered.
This kind of shameless lying will have a very bad effect on the country and its people.
Such “free gifts” surely could have been negotiated to exchange for other items which are useful.
Agree that we cannot afford luxury travels. President showed a good example by travelling in public jets, that on the other hand shall be praised.
One thing I noticed is that MR has gone back into his mind to recognise the “GREED” of others. He should have gone into himself.
I believe it is not true that the luxury fit out is not cancelled. It has been cancelled. Rogue media is lying and we need not take these media seriously.
February 27th, 2016 at 5:05 am
Gonja is toeing the party line. Gonja is a catholic and he is doing the barking for the catholic-run UNPatriotic party.
When are these traitor Sinhalese who support UNPatriotics going to understand this simple truth?
UNPatriotic party wants to stay away from China on the orders of catholic west whose agenda is to make Sri Lanka a catholic country. That’s why they want to destroy Rajapaskha clan. They used and helped catholic pira(mala)paharan’s
catholic tigers to kill more than 100,000 Buddhists. But they failed to establish a catholic country in the north and the east since MR destroyed them. Now the west wants to punish him for scuppering the plan.
Look at the countries clamouring for MR to be skinned alive. Norway, us, brasil, uk, france, argentina, macedonia, italy, etc. etc. Even archbishop two three of south africa making a lot of noise. Why because pira(mala)paharan, tamil selvan, anton balasinham, kasippu joseph, soosei, em manure etc. etc. all are/were catholics. Do you get the picture now?
Gonja also a catholic. So he is saying these diabolical lies to destroy Rajapaksha clan. Some Sinhalese donkeys are really really dumb and believe these pathalyin!