Guest Column 

by S. Rannuge

Politicising the administration at the highest levels

Of these, only a few are even from the public service, while the others are from outside like universities. 

Our grievance is that our senior, competent, qualified members are losing their last opportunity to become a secretary of a ministry. In our service we have about 700 people in the class one category which means they are either additional secretaries, district secretaries, government agents, department heads, or senior assistant secretaries.

Of these, about 350 are stagnating in their salary scales. There is no way for them to get a salary increase or promotion if these secretaries are brought from outside for some unknown reason. Therefore it is natural that our members feel frustrated. 

Managing a public sector organization like a ministry is a difficult job because the secretary will be the chief executive officer . If you bring a person from outside who has no knowledge about the public sector organization or about public sector operations, it's difficult for us to work with such a person. 

The person who is going to lead the organization should have a certain amount of experience, knowledge and skill. We know for sure that most of those people have been recently appointed from outside as secretaries, do not have the required qualifications. They have no experience too. They may have qualifications and we are not saying they are not educated people. But their expertise is in different areas. Maybe they have a Ph.D. in some area. But to lead an organization they need a different skill.

In this situation one has to work with two new people. The minister is one of them and he is a new person. Maybe he is keen and has a lot of political commitment but he does not know the operation of the agency concerned. Most of the ministers, because they are political leaders, are not administrative leaders. 

Now we not only have a new political leader but also a new administrative leader. Most of them are not aware of the functions of the agency concerned. If that is the case, our people will find it difficult to work with both parties. Maybe the administrative people, I mean the secretary will take the side of the Minister concerned. He may have a political agenda. 

But if you get an experienced and capable secretary from the SLAS, he knows how to deal with such politicians and how to work with the officers concerned. He will act as a buffer. When there is political pressure, he will explain to the minister concerned the legal situation, and the administrative difficulties involved. This is what we have to do. It is then up to the minister to accept it or not. That is a different matter. At least the minister will be getting the proper advice from the Secretary concerned. Now of course these people don't have any experience or skill or exposure to a public sector organization. They are not in a position to offer the minister any advice. 

The public administrative culture is very different from the private sector culture. We have our rules and regulations, our own traditions and our own practices. Therefore our argument is that the secretaries should mainly come from the SLAS. 

What the government has done is not acceptable to our association. Earlier we had a few outside appointments but this time, about 15 are from outside while about 30 are from the SLAS. 

I would say this is a bad beginning. Both the PA and the main opposition UNP have been advocating an independent public service. But if you bring in people who have supported the party in power, that means you are politicising the public service at the highest level. 

The main problem is that there is no proper system when it comes to appointing secretaries. We are not saying that all the officers must come from the SLAS. But we believe there should be a certain criteria. For example if you want to appoint a secretary to the Ministry of Lands, it should be someone who knows the particular subject. Some of the new appointees have not even run a small unit of five people. 

In some ministries like the Defense Ministry there maybe around 200,000 people while in the Ministry for Ethnic Integration there may be about 30-40 people. Some ministries have many statutary bodies under them. This shows there are large ministries as well as small ones, but they all have secretaries. 

We have always advocated an Independent Public Services Commission for appointments, transfers, disciplinary action etc. We gave our submissions regarding this in writing in 1994. Even now we are pursuing it but we don't want it to be managed by politicians. 

It should be an independent body with constitutional protection. There would be no point in having an Independent public service commission, which has no powers. Even the appointments of officers to higher positions such as heads of departments, corperation chairmen, must be ratified by it. There must be a system of checks and balances to avoid political interference. This has been the case in other countries like India where the public Service Commission is fully independent. We accept the argument that the political executive, that is the minister or government has every right to appoint the person concerned but selections and recommendations must be left to a professional body. 

When political parties are in the opposition they are quite committed to make these changes. But when they come to power, these are all forgotten. At present those who are sitting in the opposition and have no power will say this is what should be done. They feel the heat when they are in the opposition but they don't feel the heat when they are in power. 

At present there is also a big ha ho about the conduct of the recently concluded general elections. Elections are conducted by public servants. But public servants are being influenced by politicians because they have no power. If an independent body handles appointments, transfers and disciplinary actions, then politicians cannot interfere and public servants can do their job without fear or favour. 

(The writer is President of the Sri Lanka Administrative Service Association.)

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