SLA Commander presides Education Department building opening ceremony

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 December 2010, 00:03 GMT]
Jaffna Sri Lanka Army (SLA), Maj. Gen. Chandrasiri ceremonially opened the new Education Department building in Kaarainagar Monday in the presence of EPDP member of parliament, Chandrakumar and other officials of the Education Department, sources in Jaffna said. The opening ceremony which was to be held earlier with Jaffna MP from the United National Party (UNP), Ms Vijayakala Maheswaran, as the Chief Guest, was abruptly cancelled earlier after the Jaffna Commander was informed that EPDP Minister in the ruling government, Douglas Devananda, was not invited to the earlier ceremony.



Following the local news media coverage of the story related to earlier cancellation of the opening ceremony, Commander Chandrasri told local news media that the cancellation was due to on-going repair activities to the building and that the building will be opened once the repairs were complete.

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) members of parliament, and the UNP MP were conspicuously absent during the opening ceremony.

The building which was painted in green was changed to blue when the building was opened on Monday.

Further, Colombo issued a directive to Government Departments that for events including opening ceremonies to new buildings only SLA Commanders and politicians of the ruling government should be invited.