The Case for Public Service Reforms

by Desamanya K.H.J. Wijayadasa,

Former Secretary to the President

To reform means to make changes, to improve something or to remove its faults. Accordingly, public service reforms seek to improve the performance and capacity of individuals, groups and institutions with a view to enhancing and improving the quality of public services.

Sri Lanka inherited the British style of bureaucratic governance executed through the public service from her colonial master. The present public service comprises a series of executive and supporting service groups that provide specialized and professional services of different disciplines to the government to carry out its public delivery system. Bureaucratic management is highly compartmentalized in the form of institutions such as ministries, departments, corporations, authorities, boards, divisions, bureaus, councils etc; with very specific operational boundaries. As in many countries the Sri Lanka public service is not well received by the public as well as the politicians.

The public service is accused of being slow moving, lethargic, insensitive, obstructive, inflexible, cumbersome and time consuming; which pushes people from pillar to post making it impossible to get a job done. The ideal public servant should be impersonal and not influenced by individual differences, personal interests or favouritism. However, over the years due to politicization, deterioration in the quality of education and training and changing social and economic circumstances the public service has lost these treasured values and ethics of yesteryear and the restoration of the status quo seems near impossible.

For about two decades from the time Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948, the Public Service in Sri Lanka with the Ceylon Civil Service at its apex was one of the most efficient, independent, trusted and exemplary institutions in the newly independent countries of the world. In fact it is on record that the then Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew had been greatly influenced by the Sri Lanka Public Service in modeling the admirable Singapore Public Service.

But it is a well known fact that the Sri Lanka Public Service today is in a state of total disarray. Many are the shortcomings especially in its structure and functions, the level and quality of performance, work methods and procedures and over staffing of unimaginable proportions as a means of gaining political mileage through pubic sector employment. Shameful politicization, over institutionalization and lack of integrity, probity and accountability which have plagued the very survival of the public service have been conveniently ignored with scant attention paid to training and performance appraisal, and no attention paid to rectify the malaise of low morale and lack of job satisfaction among public servants.

Politicization of the public service has taken place from around 1956 with increasing tempo with every change of government by way of political recruitments and interference in day to day administration by politicians especially in doling out land, houses, subsidies and public assistance and the gradual imposition of political authorities over smartly and independently operating administrative authorities with a view to gaining political clout. In the early stages; political influence in recruitments etc. took place in the form of letters of recommendation to Heads of Department and Corporations. Later this was formalized by way of lists of job seekers being forwarded by the MP to the Subject Minister concerned who as a matter of routine accommodated such requests by disregarding recruitment procedures, rules and regulations. From 1977, political favours in recruitment were regularized by establishing the infamous system of job banks. The dismissal of thousands of public servants who joined the 1980 General Strike created a vacuum by way of loss of institutional memory and experienced senior officers, resulting in a huge loss of knowledge and expertise.

In 1990, President R. Premadasa re-introduced the merit based system of recruitment, thus depoliticizing the recruitment process. But unfortunately this did not last long. In 1994, the new government in the guise of doing justice to the political victims of the UNP regime reverted to the old system lock, stock and barrel. Since then, the system of redressing the politically victimized has become the general practice with every change of government. This has distorted the hierarchical system and brought in additional new recruits thus overloading state institutions to breaking point. Lately, the public service has been inundated with thousands of nondescript graduate employees recruited to non-existent posts and many of them are said to be working from home for lack of office space.

The public service is overloaded and bursting at the seam. Today, political interference in the day today affairs of public servants has reached the high water mark. The routine decision making process in state institutions has been stifled, while public servants await the political nod. The politicization of the public service commenced as a nationalistic endeavor driven by the desire to transform a highly pro-western bureaucracy to a more down to earth and people friendly service. It has misfired and become a monstrosity today, because the public servants made use of the opportunity to seek favors and ignore tradition bound value systems and good ethical conduct. The public service as it stands today is not able to withstand political pressures, maintain objectivity and transparency in its dealings and has begun to crumble. Today, unfortunately, loyalty is linked to political parties and politicians rather than to institutions and programs.

The Shelton Wanasinghe Administrative Reforms Committee of 1986 – 1988 has concluded that the administrative system in Sri Lanka was overly centralized and at the same time highly fragmented through proliferation of Ministries, Departments and Public Corporations. Moreover. it lacked management orientation and was over staffed, under compensated and vulnerable to political interference and manipulation. It lacked co-ordination mechanisms, proper work systems and procedures and has been lagging behind in training and management development. The biggest malaise faced by the executive arm of the government today is over institutionalization of the state machinery driven by political exigencies and greed. Today, over institutionalization has become a major structural problem causing slow strangulation of the economy and virtually making the country ungovernable.

To govern this small country of 25,000 square miles and 22 million people we have a President, a Prime Minister and 70 Ministers; both Cabinet and Non Cabinet. Further, we have a Parliament of 225 Members; nine Provincial Councils with 455 Provincial Councilors and 341 Local Authorities with 8,690 elected representatives; all paid by the State. By virtue of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution the total number of ministries has been restricted to 70; otherwise it could have gone up to the 110 mark as in 2009. In addition there are 100 Government Departments, 248 Statutory Institutions, 25 District Secretariats and 314 Divisional Secretariats.

Sri Lanka’s tottering economy has to sustain a massive State Service of over one and a half million employees, half a million pensioners and some two million Samurdhi beneficiaries. This means that 20% of Sri Lanka’s population is paid by the State. The average family size in Sri Lanka is four, meaning that eight million people or around one third of the population subsist on state funding. There are two major issues involved; affordability and sustainability. This is indeed suicidal!!

Another matter that should be given serious consideration is the proliferation of political and administrative institutions. At the moment there are four tiers of governance in the country; all gobbling up precious human, financial and material resources at National, Provincial, District and Divisional levels. There is a tremendous degree of duplication and overlapping resulting in waste of time, money and other limited resources. The Provincial Councils are essentially white elephants gobbling up vast sums of state funds and engaged in shadow boxing of sorts by duplicating the central government’s executive machinery with identical Departments, Statutory Bodies and Ministries and engaged in carrying out identical functions to no avail.

The Sri Lanka public service is a sick giant. What I have touched upon above is only the tip of the iceberg. Today, the over staffing of State Institutions is the norm rather than the exception. Until recently, the Ministries of Finance and Public Administration regulated the irrational expansion of departmental cadres through stringent controls. However, the recent practice of recruiting thousands of useless and jobless graduates has caused a major stampede in every conceivable government department including Divisional Secretariats. The situation in State Corporations is much worse. Some of them are over staffed by more than one hundred percent, making them loss making undertakings which are regularly bailed out by the Treasury.

Over staffing and over institutionalization has resulted in a high degree of fragmentation of subjects and functions. Under such circumstances co-ordination, monitoring and evaluation are cumbersome. It has been found that the present day public servants do not make decisions; because they are either scared to do so or are awaiting orders from above or the sacred political nod. On the one hand, this inconveniences the public and on the other hand it affects the cost effectiveness of the organization.

It is a well known fact that the present day public servants are lethargic, unresponsive and not enterprising. In the past, public servants were few in number. They were always well qualified, selected through transparent open competition and adequately trained. As a result, the quality of the recruits in the past was far superior to the present day new entrants. In the past the public servants were more task and target oriented. Today, there is nothing of the kind. In fact, there is no proper organization, method or system in management. There is inadequate induction training and no in service training. The frog in the well attitude of the present day public servant is both demoralizing and counter productive. It is important that every public servant is entrusted with a vision, a mission and a work target which would form the basis for performance monitoring and evaluation.

In the present political, economic and social context making public service reforms a reality would be challenging . On this subject, Mr. V.K. Nanayakkara commenting on the Shelton Wansinghe Administrative Reforms Committee findings has prophesied as follows. (I quote) ” Reforms can make little headway where change signifies regress and not progress as evidenced by the periodical transition of the Public Service Commission as an entity between an independent and dependent status. Any prospect for serious administrative reform requires the establishment of a nation-wide political system; the establishment of a stable, workable constitutional system, a viable economic system; an enlightened, unified elite capable of guiding orderly change; and an electorate sufficiently aware of the nature of administration and its rights and responsibilities vis-à-vis its public servants”. (unquote) The way things are moving in the country, at present, I do not think we will ever be able to make it as desired!!