President clips the wings of Ministerial personal staff 

Sri Lanka’s’ personnel secretaries, public relations officers and private staffs of Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers and State Ministers have been barred from intervening or influencing government project deals and financial transactions of such projects, the Presidential Secretariat announced.
This order issued in a Presidential circular No. PS/SP/ 07/2020 under the signature of  Secretary to the President Dr. P.B. Jayasundera is aimed at preventing alleged corrupt practices being committed by  the personnel staff of the Premier and ministers.
Dr. Jayasundera has issued this circular on the directions of the President in response to several complaints received by the Presidential Secretariat regarding malpractices of the personal staffs of ministers.
It has been revealed that several high personnel staff members of ministers were in the practice of issuing directives on behalf of their masters to get financial or material benefits from state sponsored projects.
In some instances, these officials have directed project managers to appoint their nominees to various posts in such projects, official sources said.  
According to the Presidential circular all directives relating to government projects should be issued by the Prime Minister’s Secretary, Secretaries of ministries and state ministries only.
Serious allegations were leveled against personnel staffs of ministers of previous regimes as well for involvement in procurement procedures, financial transactions, commission taking and other business activities directly or indirectly intervening in government projects, official sources said. 
The Prime Minister’s Secretary, Secretaries of ministries and state ministries have been directed to rectify if there were any such malpractices had been taken place in the recent past. (BS)