COLOMBO: The Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) has denied the statement made by SLPP MP Arundika Fernando that he has served in the SLAF as a pilot or even as a cadet officer, according to a report in the Daily Mirror.
SLAF Spokesman, Group Captain Dushan Wijesinghe tld the newspaper there were no records that the MP had ever served in the SLAF.
The MP said in parliament that his house and several important documents including flying logs of SLAF were destroyed due to the mob setting fire to his house during the recent violence.
“I have nothing to show today that I was in the Air Force and SriLankan Airlines. In those days, when a flight took off, they were recorded in logs because there was no facility to computerize at that time. All those logs were destroyed by the fire that broke out in my house,” the MP said.
The spokesman said the MP had once attended the Flying Aptitude Test in which he failed.
Group Captain Wijesinghe said that there were no records even that the MP had joined the SLAF as a cadet officer.
The Airline Pilots’ Guild of Sri Lanka (ALPGSL) has also categorically denied the MPs’s claim of him having been a Pilot in its fraternity and further went on to say that the organization has no record of him being a Pilot for the National carrier, SriLankan Airlines.
On November 16, 2018 MP Arundika Fernando, who was then with the UPFA, grabbed the spotlight by sitting on the Speaker’s Chair amid pandemonium in parliament following a no-confidence motion that was passed against MP Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was appointed as the Prime Minister on October 26. Speaker Karu Jayasuriya had to walk into the chambers with a large number of policemen who formed a human chain on that day as he could not come in from the main door behind his chair.
Arundika Fernando later apologised to the Speaker for his behaviour.
