Half the year gone, 8 SL missions still headless
Posted on June 13th, 2025
Courtesy Daily Mirror
Colombo, June 12 (Daily Mirror) – The new government which recalled all 16 Sri Lankan heads of mission in December, last year is yet to fill up eight of them despite the lapse of half of the year now, the Daily Mirror learns.
Out of these 16 missions, the government took measures to fill vacancies only at eight missions, and seven of them were with political appointees in stark contrast to its pre-election rhetoric that Sri Lanka’s Foreign Service would not be politicized. The ruling National People’s Power (NPP) was a major critic of the previous governments for politicization of the Foreign Service.
However, it has now made political appointments to the Sri Lankan missions in key countries such as the United Kingdom, Japan, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Cuba and Pakistan are the other two countries where appointments have been made from outside the service. Former Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya has been appointed Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York.
The government recalled all the political appointments made by the previous government but not Sri Lankan Ambassador in Washington DC Mahinda Samarasinghe. It triggered concerns among career diplomats.
The past governments used to make political appointments at will, and most of the time relatives of politicians- sons, daughters, daughters’ in law, and siblings – were chosen. However, the new government has not picked relatives of ruling party politicians for diplomatic posts.
Yet, it has failed to make appointments to eight missions even after six months. At the moment, Sri Lankan missions in Malaysia, Kenya, Oman, Nepal, the Seychelles, Iran, Oman and Indonesia operate without heads of missions.
The government is also hamstrung in finding enough diplomats to run all the missions and various divisions in the Foreign Ministry because of lack of recruitments to the Foreign Service. There was a batch recruited last year. Before that, the last recruitment was made in 2018 after a gap of three years.