Sanath, Namal, Lakshman, Sarath et al to

Sanath, Namal, Lakshman, Sarath et al to spearhead district development
The government has decided to assign UPFA new entrants to Parliament who polled the highest number of preferential votes last month to spearhead development activities in their respective districts, The Island learns. They will be appointed heads of district development committees in recognition of the trust people have reposed in them, according to sources close to President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Among these parliamentarians are Sanath Jayasuriya (Matara), Namal Rajapaksa (Hambantota), Lakshman Perera (Matale) and Sarath Weerasekera (Digamadulla).
The government decided against appointing any UPFA first timer a minister or a deputy minister in a bid to downsize the Cabinet. President Rajapaksa spelt out before the April 8 parliamentary polls that the number of preferential votes polled by candidates would not be the basis on which Cabinet appointments would be made. His pronouncement was widely read as a warning to UPFA seniors resorting to violence and polls malpractices to increasetheir preferential votes.
However, the UPFA leaders had later decided to give the popular new entrants some responsibilities and involve them in the development process with no additional cost to the Treasury, sources said. "It is unfair by those MPs as well as those who voted for them to leave them out while others who failed to match their performance at the election are appointed ministers and deputy ministers," a high ranking official at the Presidential Secretariat said.
Asked for comment on reports that certain Cabinet ministers were disgruntled because their ministries had been stripped of some vital institutions and the President had taken over several of them or placed them under some other ministers, sources said: "We had to depart from the traditional framework and restructure ministries to achieve the key objectives spelt out in Mahinda Chinthanaya such as making Sri Lanka the maritime, aviation, agricultural and knowledge hub in Asia." They said by taking over some ministerial functions the President had also helped curtail costs.