Premadasa ,Lalith and Gamini
Posted on September 15th, 2019
Dr Sarath Obeysekera
It was the time when Lalith and Gamini were bitter the president JR for nominating Premadasa as the candidate and they were conspiring to form a new party.
Both left UNP and .planning to take over the helm
One prominent land developer who was famous for illegal, landfilling was carrying out unauthorized development in Rajagiriya
I was the chairman of SLLRDC , at that time. My engineers objected to him for filling and building a bridge over the Canal. After he ignored the advice by engineers I personally visited the location to advise him not to do so, but his brother who was at the site threatened me.
I took action to complain to Borella police which planned to arrest him and place behind bars
I spoke to a known judge (who is no more) and explained to him about the incident
He said that we should teach such people a lesson and guided me on how to proceed
Same day early morning I received the customary 4 am telephone Call from the estate of the land developer where the President was visiting
I was asked about the incident and received a very cordial advise to get the developer down with the ASP and force the land developer to apologise
His words were this man is a supporter but take any relevant action after apology and get the Ministry Secretary to intervene”
I did so and the matter was closed after the developer was told to. build the bridge to the specification of the corporation
Though the matter died down I was subjected to indirect harassment by citing false allegation against me by him
In the meantime, another developer who was later an Ambassador was filling land in Jaela and we objected
He was forced to get the design from the corporation for drainage and also to build a lake in the site
That was done to prevent filling with no proper drainage.
Corporation forced him to use the services of out in house engineers and the developer invited me to the inauguration of lake dredging
Without knowing his ulterior motive I visited the land, where the developer placed a garland around my neck and published a photo in the national papers.
At that time a luxury Toyota car was missing from Mahawali Pool and Premadasa deployed A DIG To hound both Gamini and Lalith
It would have gone unnoticed, but to my unluck, the same developer was caught for having a car transferred illegally from Mahaveli Ministry which was under Gamini who has already left the party.
The first developer who filled land in Rajagiriya took a copy of the Newspaper cutting with the photo where I was garlanded by the second developer from Jaela claiming that the developer is a supporter of Gamini and I am also a supporter of Gamini! ( I have never even met Gamini at that time )
The first developer prepared a dossier with that information and included another false information claiming that I was a supporter of Lalith. He substantiated that claim by writing a petition that I was deploying a surveyor for land surveying of SLLRDC who is a friend of Lalith!
As expected Premadasa called me to the secretariat in the presence of the ministry secretary and treasury secretary where he placed the dossier in front of me and asked me for explanation
Both secretaries knew that I was above board and rescued me by defending me.
Finally, I was asked to send a letter closing the matter.
The first developer hanged a mammoth banner in front of the corporation in Sinhala naw ( ships) Kaapu Lalith and Mahaveli gilapy ( gulped )Gamini
Well I did not bother to remove them after the demise of Premadasa DB took over and Gamini came back to the party Same developer hanged a Banner Ape’ Gamini Weerayata Jaya Wewa” And now all three have died tragically and we live to see the mess this country is now in
This is the type of politics the leaders were playing
September 17th, 2019 at 4:07 pm
I too had two similar incidents that young me was so fed up, hated my people and left the country in 60s.As a young fellow I used to experiment a lot like making electricity from a lemon bush with plenty of lemons,not limes, that powered a small transistor radio that was lent to me by the friendly American Marines that guarded their embassy where I frequent a lot,making rockets,etc. They got that transistor from Japan, where it was first invented and used very little electrical power.
I was asked by a Danish engineer, after hearing about my abilities from the foreign residents I associated with.
was asked along with my dear burger friend to assist him to supervise the concreting of the dam that was built in Kandy for the water scheme where the subcontractors were doing a very bad job where they carelessly installed the MS bars and the concreating was badly done with many beehives(air pockets) that would allow the water to get at the reinforcing ms bars where they never vibrated the concrete to get rid of the air bubbles where the penetrated water would cause the ms bars to rust, that would crack the load bearing concrete. They didn’t take any notice of me because I was only 16 years.
I too was trained to make amendments to the plans that was drawn in France by the main contracting company and one day my 14 year Iranian girlfriend came to the office to see why I was late come to see her and this young girl noticed from the drawings that the river based water intake surge chamber is to be built down stream below the Kandy’s town sewage is discharged in to the river where people would be drinking sewage. When this was pointed out and the plans were forced to alter, the delay that caused was upsetting the sub contractors where one of them climbed a tree until the owner of the company,Mr seevali Ratwatte came near the tree and the fellow wanted me get sacked.SR was Mrs Swrd’s brother. asked me what he should say to the protester and I advised him to instruct the sub contractor to jump from the tree and when Seevali instructed him so,he gave up the protest came down and dismissed on the spot.I left this for another venture in Colombo doing a worthwhile project again encountering very corrupt politicians resulting in my American friend be deported because he didn’t give into the crooks and soon after left the country, never to return, sadly my burgher friend fight the battles without me,committed suicide by driving his beautiful kids in to the incoming train at a crossing. Too late and very busy to go on….. here in UK the worst workers I have are the Sinhalese, very lazy,decietful,full of envy and with much jealousy.Have a business and you will see the difference and two other business without them is working like clock work.I hardly expose my self to our community.sorry for any errors,in a hurry as usual.