{"id":58011,"date":"2016-08-25T17:10:03","date_gmt":"2016-08-26T00:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=58011"},"modified":"2016-08-25T17:10:03","modified_gmt":"2016-08-26T00:10:03","slug":"malik-hires-another-us-firm-to-lobby-for-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/08\/25\/malik-hires-another-us-firm-to-lobby-for-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"Malik hires another US firm to lobby for Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Hema Perera\u00a0Wadduwa\u00a0Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"article_date\">August 25, 2016, 9:56 pm<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Reports that Minister Malik Samarawickrama has contracted a US PR firm must have come as a shock to many. <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>This was what the former government was accused of. The US firms were paid hefty sums monthly to boost Sri Lanka\u2019s image, but the US government remained hostile as it detested the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa.<\/strong><\/span> It was mentioned in social media that those who retained these companies received handsome kick-backs; but this government, though it is said to be aware of what actually happened as there are documents available, has done nothing to bring these miscreants to justice.<\/p>\n<p>Is it because Vass Gunawardena has got close to a VVVIP of this government and is ready to rat on his former boss? We have learnt nothing of what has happened, bar the President\u2019s recent statement that he would reveal it all, and whatever that may be. Let us hope that the President would immediately request the authorities to reveal to us how and who authorized the earlier \u2018adventure\u2019 and also inform us, the public, as we today have a legal right to demand such information as to who authorized and who has benefitted from that \u2018fraudulent\u2019 act. He should now find out why Minister Samarawickrema has decided to follow the dubious act of Cabraal and Gunawardena. This must be inquired into in the public interest, for we are concerned that this government, which we elected and reposed much confidence in, may be going the same way as the government we rejected because of horrendous corruption. If Minister Samarawickrama is seeking to bring the IT Industry in a big way, then he must go to the Silicon Valley in the US and to Bangalore in India; there is no need to retain a lobbyist in the US; after our war has ended, that money could be better used to set up an IT Unit in the North.<\/p>\n<p>Over to you Mr. President<\/p>\n<p>Hema Perera<\/p>\n<p>Wadduwa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hema Perera\u00a0Wadduwa\u00a0Courtesy The Island August 25, 2016, 9:56 pm Reports that Minister Malik Samarawickrama has contracted a US PR firm must have come as a shock to many. This was what the former government was accused of. The US firms were paid hefty sums monthly to boost Sri Lanka\u2019s image, but the US government remained [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}