Civilising the civil and public service

In Britain and several other Western countries, the civil and public services have to a large extent functioned independently, effectively and beyond party politics. Governments may change but the civil and public service go on to serve the people in line with the policies of the administration.   

This was one of the gifts or positive features that Britain left behind in Sri Lanka when we became independent in 1948. We saw some distortions or aberrations since 1948 but the major change to bring party politics into the civil or public service took place in 1965 when the then Minister of State, J. R. Jayawardena appointed his friend and party colleague Anandatissa de Alwis as the Secretary to the Ministry of State. Since then the decline or decay has worsened and today we see a virtually wholesale party politicization of the civil and public services from top to bottom. Along with this, an especially after Sri Lanka swallowed the globalised capitalist market economic policies in 1977, the civil or public service has now become a government service with loyalty mainly to the party and politicians in power while sincere public service is largely in the waste paper basket.   

Till the 1960s journalists and others were advised by doyens like D. B. Dhanapala that we should not use the words government servants, instead say public servants, because these employees were directly paid by the people and their commitment was to work sincerely and effectively for the people. But what we see now is a tragedy and a farce. For most common people especially the poor, who come from faraway places like Hambantota or Kilinochchi, the government service is like a hard-hearted bureaucracy, tied in the knots of the administrative and financial regulations, cynically referred to as ‘ARs’ and ‘FRs’. During the ousted Mahinda Rajapaksa regime from November 2005 to January 8, 2015 hundreds of thousands were recruited to the government service mainly on a party political basis. A majority of them were recruited on a sort of contract or non-permanent basis and given posts where they were either misfits or had no opportunity to bring out their full potential. In addition, with the plunder and pillage of public funds taking place at VIP level on a scale amounting to billions of dollar, bribery also plagued the government service at virtually all levels. Most people were aware that if they wanted to get some work done at a state institution a bribe would have to be offered. Eventually this bureaucratic bear became a monstrosity of some 1.3 million employees, with their salaries, allowances and pensions draining away more than half the state or public revenue. There were exceptions but they were a precious few.   

It is in this context that Prime Minster Ranil Wickremesinghe -- who in a strange twist of circumstances happens to be J.R. Jayawardene’s protege -- announced in Singapore on Tuesday the National Government was drawing up a plan to radically restructure the civil and public service.

Addressing a meeting at the famed Civil Service College in Singapore, he said this institution and the Singapore government would cooperate with the Sri Lankan government in transforming the obese government sector, polluted by party politics into a sincere and independent public service that will really serve the people, specially the poor. President Maithripala Sirisena in his inauguration speech assured that he and others at the helm of the government would be servant leaders, not those who dominate, abuse or plunder the resources of the people. If the Prime Minister’s radicalization plan is properly implemented then it will be a major step towards bringing about Abraham Lincoln’s dream of a government of the people, for the people and by the people.So be it.