Lalith Weeratunga, Secretary to President Mahinda Rajapaksa issuing a clarification from the Presidential Secretariat today said the change of portfolio of Minister Milinda Moragoda was done in the course of shifting of portfolios which was a prerogative of the President.


He stated that the President’s attention has been drawn to the reference in the ‘Opinion Column’ of Sunday Times of July 5, 2009 to the shifting of Moragoda’s portfolio which, the Columnist, quoting political sources has said, ”Rajapaksa was so furious that he wanted to strip Moragoda of Tourism and make him  Minister without Portfolio, but that some of his colleagues who left the UNP with him intervened and pleaded that such a move would be a slap on the rest of them as well”.


Weeratunga in his clarification to the Editor, Sunday Times stated,-” I am directed to inform you that the change of portfolio of the Hon. Milinda Moragoda was not done through anger by the President as stated, but was done in the course of a normal shifting of portfolios, which is a prerogative of the President, and is so understood by the Hon.Milinda Moragoda. The reference made to HE the President and minister Moragoda is unfair as well as factually incorrect”.


He further stated,-”You are also informed that contrary to what is published, no other colleagues of the Hon. Milinda Moragoda who left the UNP with him, had intervened or pleaded with the President in this regard, as there was no cause for such intervention or pleading”.