Editorial

Editorial

Partying at public expense

Yesterday’s Daily News, no doubt as a sign of approval, gave lead play on its front page to a report headlined "drastic cuts in ministerial costs’’ indicating that the ruling powers are not entirely impervious to public opinion on the 45-member cabinet, the biggest this country has ever had and possibly the largest in the world. The government’s nakedness on this front has been heightened by the impact of the rupee devaluation on the prices of many everyday essentials and hence President Kumaratunga’s missive to her ministers to serve themselves less from the national exchequer.

What is interesting in the detailed directive are the areas of prohibition. One was that government funds should not be used for hosting seminars and other political deliberations. Another is that public funds must not be used for food and accommodation in local travel. What clearly emerges from these bans is that public funds have been freely used for such purposes and that is something that is common knowledge. It must be said in fairness that neither this government nor its People’s Alliance predecessor are not the only culprits. Politicians of different regimes have over the years regarded tax money of the people and other resources of the government as fair game to be spent for brazenly political purposes.

The tragedy is that like election violence, cavalier expenditure of funds from the national kitty for obvious political purposes escalate with every change of government. In the early post-Independence years ministers came to office in their own cars. If they went on official circuit, they used these self-same vehicles, driven by their privately employed chauffeurs, and were paid mileage at prevailing rates. They stayed in resthouses or circuit bungalows and paid their own bills, but were of course entitled to ‘batta’ sufficient to meet the actual cost with no surplus for themselves.

Over the years the story has become very different with ministries routinely paying 5-star hotel bills out of their votes to cover expenses of ministers and accompanying retinue junketing at public expense. The seminars the president has talked about are hosted at luxury venues and are never complete without tea breaks complete with cakes, sandwiches and pastries, followed by a sumptuous lunch and perhaps cocktails. A close examination of the frequency of government hospitality and its style, inevitably at the taxpayer’s expense, will reveal the prevailing situation. Not all such events are political. But for a country in Sri Lanka’s predicament, they are extravagant and totally indefensible. The big question is whether a bloated political establishment lavishing perks on itself is capable of leashing officialdom and enforcing moderation if not austerity which is sorely needed at this time.

Look at the number of cars and officials the president is allowing the ministers and their deputies. For the president to say that they are to be restricted to three vehicles each - two cars and a double cab - the implication is that many are using more. And they have been permitted to do so until economic imperatives have forced the government to the wall. Why do they need three vehicles each? That’s two too many from the point of view of the people who pay for such privileges. If a point is stretched and a second vehicle provided for use if the first is being repaired or serviced, the taxpayer may not object though he well knows that politicians, and for that matter too many officials, freely draw on ministry and departmental vehicles for obviously private purposes.

If these categories of persons are given either duty free or concessionary duty vehicles, that is obviously a perquisite granted to them so that they can also use such vehicles for official purposes. But does that happen in this republic which claims to be both democratic and socialist? They get their duty free or near duty free cars and keep them at home for the wife and kids and use official vehicles for both official and private purposes. Ministers and deputy ministers routinely use state-owned vehicles for their politics - not only vehicles assigned to them but also those alloted to departments, corporations and other agencies under their charge. President Kumaratunga would have done herself great credit if she stopped such flagrant abuse that was very visible during the elections. But the old argument continues to be trotted out. "What did you do in your time?’’

Yes, the same thing was done in the seventeen years of UNP rule. But as the people have seen for themselves, such abuse only becomes worse and not better with changes of government. Ministers, under the new cost cutting dispensation laid down by the president, can still ride in cars costing up to Rs. 3.5 million. They can have a staff of 20, many of whom are utilized for political work that is personal to the minister and has nothing to do with the taxpayer picking up the tab. The president has said that she herself has imposed certain restrictions on the use of funds at the presidential secretariat but not enumerated what these measures are. The current effort is to impose some restraint on flagrantly improper use of public funds, not an attempt to stop such practices altogether.

Even that attempt has been the result of the groundswell of public anger at how those who seek office "to serve the people’’ proceed to serve themselves after getting elected while the masses who voted them to office are burdened with an unbearable cost of living. The politicians lavishly spend the taxpayer’s money on themselves and on extending their tenure with few if any restraints imposed by the leaders. Whether even the modest restraints now imposed will be observed is doubtful.

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