Text of address delivered by K. H. J. Wijayadasa former Secretary to the President On The Public Servant and the Politician: Harmony and Conflict at the Seminar Organised by the Sri Lanka Association of Retired Executives, Professionals and Academics and held at the Postgraduate Institute of Management on 3rd November 2009.

Today, there is absolutely no disharmony or conflict between the public servant and the politician thanks to three severe blows directed at the public servants by the politicians in a short span of 50 years in order to cut them down to size. The first blow was the abolition of the Ceylon Civil Service in 1963, which was deemed to be the guardian of good governance. The second was the promulgation of the Republican Constitution in 1972 spelling disaster to the independence of the public service. This was followed in quick succession by the passage of the so-called bahuboota or nonsensical Constitution of 1977 resulting in the institution of the executive presidential system of government characterised by the sadistic winner-takes-all syndrome and the one man show pandemic.

There is no conflict today between the public servant and the politician because the political master and the bureaucratic servant are both on the same wave length and see eye to eye through their respective cock-eyed lenses. While the politician has over the years usurped many of the powers and functions once enjoyed by the public servant, the latter has happily abdicated them and meekly surrendered to the dictates of the politician. For the public servant the name of the game is survival; hence there is no dispute and without a dispute there is obviously no conflict!

What is at issue today is not whether there is harmony or conflict between these two strange bedfellows, but whether they have jointly or severally the ability and the competence to deal with the complexities of governance. Their forte, we are told, is policy formulation and implementation. How good or bad they are in this sphere of activity can be judged from a couple of recent Supreme Court judgements and rulings. It was not so long ago that the Supreme Court had to sit down to the unenviable tasks of formulating the school admissions circular determining the selling prices of gas and fuel, regulating the conducting of public examinations and evaluations of answer scripts and, above all, unraveling the mysteries, surrounding fraudulent state transactions running into billions of rupees and some of them involving the highest in the land.

At this point, I would like to quote a few sentences from The Island editorial of 07th August 2009, which is a telling indictment of the politicians and the public servants who seem to be operating hand in glove for their mutual benefit: "This country has over 4,000 elected peoples representatives in Parliament, Provincial Councils and Local Government bodies. They and their institutions are maintained at a huge cost to the public purse. Besides parasitic politicians there is a massive bureaucracy characterised by lethargy, inefficiency, bungling and callousness. Together they have proved that we can do without them. We need only the executive presidency and the judiciary to run this country."

I am sure The Island editor could have added many more misdemeanours and misadventures to the above list such as non implementation of the 17th amendment to the Constitution, bribery, corruption, abuse of power, favouritism and nepotism, but space would have been the constraint.

For the year 2009 the total budgeted expenditure of the government is in the region of Rs. 1,635 billion without taking into account supplementary estimates which are in the pipeline. Of this amount Rs. 830 billion is earmarked for public service expenditure and Rs. 480 billion for debt repayments, making up a total recurrent budget of Rs. 1,310 billion or around 85% of total budgeted expenditure. Of the Rs. 830 billion set apart for recurrent expenditure approximately Rs. 500 billion is earmarked for payment of salaries, allowances, pensions etc. of central government and provincial council employees. While the entirety of government income is channelled into recurrent expenditure and debt repayments donor funds are utilised to meet capital expenditure.

Sri Lanka is deemed to be a middle income country with a per capital income of around 2,000 US Dollars. But our extravagance in public spending puts high income countries to shame. Our tally of Cabinet, non Cabinet and Deputy Ministers plus Provincial Council Ministers exceeds 160! We are probably the only country in the world with a Minister for every 112,000 persons. In India and China which carry populations exceeding one billion each there is approximately one central and regional government minister for every 4 million persons or so.

In Sri Lanka seminars and workshop are held in five star hotels where the minimum cost per head is around Rs. 3,000. About 50 Provincial Councillors at a time taking wing to far off lands on study tours at public expense is not an uncommon sight today. We are yet to put an end to the majestic movements of ministers travelling in bullet proof limousines protected to the teeth by 20 commandos or more each.

The world wide recession and inflation are of no concern to ministers and parliamentarians as they enjoy many unbelievable perquisites such as attendance, housing, fuel and secretarial allowances and subsidies for many essentials of living including food. It is ironical that even though the people were called upon to suffer many hardships until terrorism was wiped out, the politicians remained well cushioned against inflation and served themselves to their heart’s content.

The Provincial Council set-up which was forced on us by India in a vain effort to resolve the so-called ethnic problem has become a white elephant today. It is a classic example of meaningless institutional duplication, misallocation of scarce material and human resources and an absolute burden on state coffers. It has exacerbated political divisions, caused further politicization of the administration and spread the winner-takes-all syndrome right down to the grassroot level Subjects, powers and functions which have been fully devolved to the periphery such as Local Government, Primary and Secondary Education, Indigenous Medicine, Rural Development and Co-operatives, to name a few, are being managed and administered full throttle by both Central Government and Provincial Council Ministers, Ministries and Departments.

So, quite naturally like inheriting parental property and wealth parliamentary and provincial council seats are passed down from father to son. As long as the public servants turn a blind eye to this blatant squandering of the public purse they will remain in the good books of the politicians and enjoy at least the crumbs falling off their tables. Unfortunately, the economic benefits of holding office are so rewarding that one tends not only to compromise the moral authority for a principle but also resort to the most heinous means to come to power and stay in power. This is the malady our country is faced with today.

This has been beautifully summed up in a Sinhala proverb: ‘Whom are we to complain to if the protective fence and boundary ridge of the paddy field were to prey upon the paddy crop? All the retired executives, professionals and academics present here should join hands in finding an effective and sustainable solution to this farce before the patient is pronounced dead. All the patchwork solutions hitherto introduced have failed to bear fruit.