{"id":43973,"date":"2015-11-12T20:57:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-13T00:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=43973"},"modified":"2015-11-12T20:57:00","modified_gmt":"2015-11-13T00:57:00","slug":"ministers-clashcabinet-spokesman-rajitha-says-president-has-cancelled-contracts-with-avant-garde-but-justice-minister-wijeyadasa-denies-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=43973","title":{"rendered":"Ministers Clash:Cabinet Spokesman Rajitha says President has Cancelled Contracts with Avant Garde but Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Denies it"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dharisha Bastians<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Avant Garde controversy continued to cause major divisions in the ruling administration, after Justice Minister Wijedasa Rajapaksa denied reports that the President had ordered the cancellation of all Government contracts with the private security firm.<\/p>\n

Cabinet Spokesman Rajitha Senaratne, speaking to reporters at the cabinet briefing yesterday contradicted the Justice Minister\u2019s remarks to the press, saying Rajapaksa had been present at Wednesday\u2019s special Cabinet meeting, but stayed silent through the entire discussion.<\/p>\n

The Justice Minister told reporters that there had been no decision made at the special cabinet meeting to cancel the deals with Avant Garde.<\/p>\n

He said President Maithripala Sirisena had only asked officials to look into the possibility of cancelling the deals and handing the operations over to the Sri Lanka Navy.<\/p>\n

But Senaratne yesterday dismissed Minister Rajapakse\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cHe talks only to the press. Why didn\u2019t he speak at the cabinet meeting when everyone was there?\u201d Minister Senaratne charged, on the offensive.<\/p>\n

The Cabinet Spokesman said that Solicitor General Suhada Gamlath who had also been present during the meeting had agreed that the Navy could take over the operation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Navy Commander very clearly said they could take over and the President gave him the instruction,\u201d Minister Senaratne said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Sri Lanka Navy confirmed it will commence taking custody of Government weapons in Avant Garde\u2019s possession today (13) as a first step, Navy Spokesman Captain Akram Alawi told Daily FT last night.<\/p>\n

Captain Alawi said the Sri Lanka Navy had received directives from the President and the Ministry of Defence about taking custody of the weapons in Avant Garde\u2019s possession and taking over the company\u2019s operation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe operations will be taken over in due course. But as a first step we will take the weapons and equipment into custody and keep them at naval bases in Galle,\u201d the Spokesman told Daily FT.<\/p>\n

Captain Alawi said that the Sri Lanka Navy had received directives from the President after the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday night, but added that the Navy had been waiting on a directive from the Ministry of Defence to take custody of Avant Garde weapons.<\/p>\n

Courtesy:Daily FT<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dharisha Bastians The Avant Garde controversy continued to cause major divisions in the ruling administration, after Justice Minister Wijedasa Rajapaksa denied reports that the President had ordered the cancellation of all Government contracts with the private security firm. Cabinet Spokesman Rajitha Senaratne, speaking to reporters at the cabinet briefing yesterday contradicted the Justice Minister\u2019s …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Ministers Clash:Cabinet Spokesman Rajitha says President has Cancelled Contracts with Avant Garde but Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Denies it’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43973"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43973"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43974,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43973\/revisions\/43974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}