Need for a professional administrator as Treasury Head (Part 02)

by Dr Sudath Gunasekara

Read Part One

(August 01, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) In the light of the credentials of some of these outsider Secretaries, there is one thing I can vouch regarding the SLAS through experience, both as an individual and as a person, who had been the president of SASA for three long years. That is, although you may occasionally come across one or two black sheep, which is of course unavoidable in a group numbering a few thousand different individuals, by and large, the degree of honesty and integrity of SLAS officers as a group and their commitment to service is still very high and commendable.

Regarding the alleged professional inadequacies, first, you have to identify the root cause or causes of this malady and then take appropriate action to remedy it without resorting to unorthodox remedies which have proved worse than the disease. For example, a better recruitment, appointment, training and promotion scheme, selective training, restoring the Public Service Commission to bring back independence of the public service, re-introducing the Secretary’s Minute, bringing the public service once again under the Head of the Treasury and making him the Head of the public service, are some of the measures that could be taken to improve the service. I also think it is better to have a two tier SLAS Service, say, Upper Level and Lower Level where you recruit only first class graduates to the Upper Level and other graduates to the Lower Level with provisions for a certain percentage of the exceptional ones in the Lower Level to be promoted to the senior level. The top management should be reserved for the senior level cadre and the Secretaries should be appointed only from a ‘Super Cadre’ as it was done in the past. They also should be re-named Permanent Secretaries and be freed from the control of the Public Service Commission as well. This will guarantee the installation of a meritocracy in the higher seats of administration which is a sine qua non for efficient and good governance.

I think both levels should be exposed to selective and intensive training, required to face the latest challenges of modern management so that technically, they will be competent to handle any responsibility in a given situation. When I say selective training what I mean is special training in different fields like agriculture, banking, commerce and trade, IT, media and industry , depending on the background and aptitude of each officer in addition to the general training in public administration that should be made compulsory for all candidates. Preferably these training programmes should lead to Masters and even PhDs, where both theory and practice have to be taught and tested. Such comprehensive and advanced training will definitely equip them with the ability to face any given situation and work with any professional group with confidence, competence and authority. In order to perform their duty effectively and efficiently all SLAS officers should be widely exposed to both local and international experiences, both past and present, and be made tri-lingual as well (Sinhala, Tamil and English). With all its rather exaggerated defects, an independent, efficient and effective professional bureaucracy forms the cornerstone of effective and good governance. Governments come and governments go. But it is the bureaucracy that sustains stability and continuance of governance.

Such a change may, of course, need an overall reorganization of the present service, including an attractive salary that is commensurate with responsibility and status, to enable to attract the best university products to the service and also to avoid possible corruption among them arising from the inability to keep their heads above water due to pecuniary difficulties.

Since even now university graduates with the best results opt either to join the university staff or the SLAS, generally it is the dropouts at these attempts who join the other sectors both public and private, of course, with very few exceptions. Therefore, there is no reason why such people cannot be trained to take up any responsibility. Also as these graduates represent a wide range of subjects, both in arts and science, preparing SLAS officers to take up any challenge under the sun, I do not think should be a problem. So in this backdrop to say or to assume that you can’t find a suitable person from the SLAS to be appointed as the Head of the Treasury, in my opinion, is a disgrace uncalled for, leveled against the entire SLAS, the indisputable ‘Steel Frame’ of the machinery of governance in this country.

Going back to the Secretary to the General Treasury and the Ministry of Finance, having adopted the above steps, I have a feeling that it should be made an independent post like the Auditor General or the Commissioner of Elections, so that he cannot be swayed as and when politicians crave for cheap poly-tricks. Now that you have generals all over the public service I would suggest that this post may also be designated Secretary General of the Treasury and the Ministry of Finance.

Finally, I must also scribe a word about the onerous responsibilities of the Sri Lanka Administrative Service Association (SASA) as well. The SASA should also, if not mainly, at least partly, share the responsibility for allowing the government to appoint outsiders to this post. One can argue that there is nothing they can do about it since appointing Secretaries is the prerogative of the Head of State. True enough, but SLAS being the main administrative arm of the government and SASA being its professional trade union, it should vehemently protest against such unwelcome action by any government and maintain its dignity and status and furthermore prove its mettle as the custodians of public interest.

As a trade union too, it should be re-organized, re-activated and strengthened to face this challenge both at the national level and the periphery. It should enroll all SLAS officers as its members ( when I attended the last AGM the impression I got was that many have not cared to attend it and subsequently, in my conversations I found most of them display a negative and lethargic attitude towards it) and the general membership should set a tradition and a convention to have either the Prime Minister’s Secretary or the President’s Secretary as its president, so that the President of SASA could conveniently command the respect and ready cooperation of the general membership and the entire public service, including the Ministry Secretaries, with authority, and also make it the most respected and powerful trade union in the public service. When I was President SASA, I had this advantage as a senior Ministry Secretary, by virtue of the fact that I was the Secretary to Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike.

With the objective of starting this tradition, in fact I offered my position to the then Secretary to the President, but he declined it due to personal reasons. Had he accepted my invitation, I am sure we would have set up the correct tradition long time ago. I also must make it very clear that this should be a trade union with a difference; a professional association that gives priority to national interests rather than private interests, keeping to its motto- ‘Service to others first’, so that it can give the leadership to the entire nation to charter the country in the correct direction. I really feel thoroughly distressed when I note that the SASA has not been able to have even a building of its own as the headquarters after 45 years of existence. I strongly feel that SASA should certainly play a much stronger and decisive role in nation building by upgrading the quality of its service and its legitimate place in our society.

Some of those who read this note might be naturally inclined to think that I am trying to go back to the old Civil Service system that was once discarded as an outdated Bamunukulaya. No, not at all. I don’t mean it that way. In any case, personally I have no vested interest either, since I am now only a retired old man, with no personal ambitions left to fulfil. I am only thinking of a way out of this seemingly intractable problem in the broader interest of the country.

(The Writer is a Retired Ministry Secretary and one time President of the SASA )
Concluded
- Sri Lanka Guardian