Tuesday 31st December, 2024

The honeymoon between the state service and the JVP-led NPP government is apparently on the rocks. Public employees overwhelmingly voted for the NPP at both presidential and parliamentary elections this year, as evident from the postal vote results, but some NPP ministers have issued warnings to the public service, accusing it of being an impediment to the implementation of their policies and programmes. These politicians are learning to navigate the governance issues the hard way, and their frustration is understandable, but the blame for their failure to live up to the people’s expectations cannot be laid solely at the feet of state workers.

Minister Sunil Handunnetti has recently vented his frustration at public officials, accusing them of failing to implement the government’s directives. He has reportedly flayed them for obstructing the government by using various laws, rules and regulations as excuses. Likening the 2022 mass uprising that led to the collapse of the previous government and made thousands of politicians leave politics, to a tsunami, Minister K. D. Lal Kantha has warned that public resentment will trigger the next ‘tsunami’ against the public service. These warnings can be considered part of a psy op to make the bureaucracy bend to the government’s will. Strangely, the public sector trade unions that would take to the streets at the drop of a hat under previous governments have chosen to remain silent on the current leaders’ diatribe against state workers.

The public service has become synonymous with inefficiency and earned notoriety for various malpractices including corruption. It hardly serves the interests of the ordinary people, who are disillusioned with it. Public complaints abound against most state officials who seem to derive a perverse pleasure from inconveniencing the people. Yesterday, we published a letter to the editor about how the police and the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (TRC) had made a Sri Lankan professional jump through the hoops when he sought their help to trace his lost phone; he wasted many hours at a police station in a Colombo suburb and the TRC headquarters before returning home frustrated. So, the NPP ministers’ criticism of the state service may have struck a responsive chord with many resentful people who want public service reformed and held to account. However, the blame for the sorry state of affairs in the public service should be apportioned to politicians, who have systematically emasculated it over the years. Corruption and servility of bureaucrats in key positions have also taken their toll on the integrity and efficiency of the public service.

The establishment of the independent Public Service Commission has not yielded the desired results; the state service is not free from political interference. Politicians’ efforts to leverage popular mandates to railroad state officials into doing their bidding on the pretext of serving the people’s interests better must be frustrated. It may be recalled that the SLFP-led United Front government, which secured a two-thirds majority in Parliament in 1970, rendered the state service servile. The UNP administration, which obtained a five-sixths majority in 1977, followed suit. All governments have since had the public service on a string.

The state service is part of the Executive, according to the Constitution. It is not a mere appendage of any branch of government, and should be able to act independently within the confines of the Constitution, other laws and regulations. After all, one of the NPP’s main election pledges was to ensure the independence of the state service and enhance its efficiency while improving the state employees’ lot by way of biannual salary revisions, etc.

Interestingly, the current ministers’ swipes at state employees remind us of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s antipathy towards the state service. A former combat officer in a hurry, he, as the President, wanted all his orders carried out swiftly with no questions asked. He once declared that his orders had to take precedence over government circulars. Instead of lambasting the public officials, he should have been thankful to them for delaying the implementation of his ill-conceived orders, which became his undoing. This is something the NPP politicians, who are also flaunting their huge popular mandate, should take cognisance of.

Monday 30th December, 2024

The Atal Bihari Vajpayee memorial lecture 2024, delivered by former President Ranil Wickremesinghe in New Delhi over the weekend, was interesting, insightful, and had some takeaways on history, Indo-Lanka relations, Sri Lanka’s economic crisis and recovery efforts, and most of all, the circumstances that led to the signing of the 2002 ceasefire agreement between the government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the LTTE, India’s support for Sri Lanka during the Eelam War IV and at the height of the economic crisis here in 2022.

True, the LTTE had scored a string of battlefield victories by the time the Norwegian-crafted ceasefire agreement was inked in 2002, as Wickremesinghe has rightly said, but some newly acquired weapons systems had enabled the military to resist the LTTE offensives effectively. It was Pakistan that equipped the Sri Lanka army with multi-barrel rocket launchers which helped outgun the LTTE. The army also carried out several highly successful deep penetration operations which the ceasefire agreement required the GoSL to suspend immediately.

What went without mention in Wickremesinghe’s lecture was that the fragile truce enabled the LTTE to make preparations for the Eelam War IV and gain international legitimacy. The LTTE committed countless ceasefire violations, but the truce monitors and the self-appointed Co-Chairs of Sri Lanka’s ‘peace process’, namely the US, Norway, Japan and the EU, did precious little to rein it in. It continued to stockpile weapons, train cadres and infiltrate Colombo and even other areas as never before. The Co-Chairs made the implementation of a USD 4.5 billion aid pledge contingent on the progress in the ‘peace process’, and thereby put the GoSL in a straitjacket.

Making the most of the ceasefire and the partiality of the truce monitors, the LTTE moved more of its heavy guns to the areas south of the Trincomalee harbour and the Palali airstrip with a view to pounding the two strategically important targets with artillery barrages, disrupting supplies and troops movement, and forcing the military personnel in the Jaffna peninsula to surrender. An intelligence report warned of the LTTE’s grand plan, and the then President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was wise enough to act on it; former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar visited New Delhi and briefed the Indian government on the impending danger. The Island gained access to the intelligence dossier at issue, and reported on it. The UNP-led UNF government threatened to strip Kadirgamar of special security provided to him in view of LTTE threats to his life, claiming that he was trying to derail the ‘peace process’. Thankfully, sanity prevailed and the UNF changed its mind. Subsequently, President Kumaratunga took over the Defence Ministry and went on to sack the UNF government and hold a snap general election, which the SLFP-led UPFA (with the JVP as a constituent) won in 2004.

The UNF government laboured under the delusion that it had won over the international community (read the US-led western bloc) by adhering to the truce, which in fact stood the LTTE in good stead. It would not have been possible to defeat the LTTE without India’s support, but the question is whether India would have allowed military operations to go on in the Vanni if the LTTE had not turned against it. The general consensus is that the war would have been over way back in 1987 unless India had intervened to save Prabhakaran, who was trapped in the North, with the army closing in, and to coerce the then President J. R. Jayewardene into signing the Indo-Lanka Accord. But for India’s mistake of creating terror groups, such as the LTTE, Sri Lanka’s economy would have grown at a faster rate, and perhaps a foreign currency reserves crisis would not have come about.

Sri Lanka would not have been able to defeat terrorism even with India’s support in 2009 if the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa had given in to western pressure and suspended military operations. The UK and France rushed their foreign ministers here in a bid to scuttle the war and save Prabhakaran and other Tiger leaders. Wickremesinghe’s informative narrative of the war would have been more comprehensive if the aforesaid facts had been included.

Sadly, the Rajapaksa government launched a witch-hunt against former war-winning Army Commander Gen. Sarath Fonseka, who turned against it at the behest of some crafty Opposition politicians including the JVP and UNP leaders. After the 2015 regime change, the UNP-led Yahapalana government carried out a vilification campaign against the war-winning Navy Commander Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda and other battle-hardened senior naval officers.

Ironically, the JVP-led NPP government has reduced security provided to Mahinda Rajapaksa, whose unwavering political leadership for the war made the defeat of the LTTE possible. The NPP would not have been able to conduct its election campaigns in the North and the East, much less win seats, if the LTTE had been around. Today, the voice of the people in those parts of the country is heard, and children can go to school without fear of being abducted on the way and turned into cannon fodder.

The decision of the present administration to reduce the army of security personnel allotted to former presidents at enormous taxpayer expense came into effect last week. This will, no doubt, be widely welcomed countrywide. There are five living former presidents and the widow of one (Mrs. Hema Premadasa), enjoying the considerable benefits of the Presidential Entitlements Act which became effective from February 1986. This law was enacted by the government of the country’s first executive president, J.R. Jayewardene, who was the creator of this office and its first incumbent. Though privately wealthy, JRJ obviously looked to the future and the well being of his successors in that powerful office, some of of whom solemnly pledged to abolish it. It was one of many promises that remain undelivered to this day.

The present rulers, by reducing the state-provided security of former presidents and the widow of one has not thrown them to the wolves and the mercy of potential assassins. They will continue to enjoy substantial security cover, now restricted to the police alone rather than a combination of the police and military. As far as we are aware, a protest has been lodged only on behalf of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa by the Sri Lanka Podu Jana Peramuna (SLPP), the political party he leads. While Rajapaksa himself has not been heard protesting, a couple of SLPP officials including a Member of Parliament has publicly criticized the measure.

They seem to regard the war winning president as still at risk from the rump of the LTTE he destroyed in 2009. The Tigers, no doubt, assassinated President Ranasinghe Premadasa and attempted in December 1999 to assassinate President Chandrika Kumaratunga campaigning on the eve of an election seeking a second term. She lost an eye in that terrorist attack where 34 others were killed and over 105 injured. Apart from these, the LTTE successfully assassinated several political heavyweights in Sri Lanka as well as former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in India. At least some in the SLPP seem to think that what remains of the LTTE, whether at home or abroad, makes Rajapaksa still vulnerable.

Last week there was some talk of MR being at risk from a drone attack. This has been discounted as far-fetched by and incumbent deputy minister. In any event there will be continued threat assessments every six months and past presidents (and Mrs. Premadasa) provided security in accordance with these. The fact is that political leaders once upon a time risked their lives and limbs not only at the hands of the LTTE but also at the hands of the JVP, particularly during its second second adventure when it was responsible for many political killings. But all that is water under the bridges and what is relevant at present is whether the leaders of today are currently under risk and require protection at public cost.

During the worst of times, readers will remember, there were road closures for long periods of time when VIPs were whizzing past in motorcades with sirens screaming and massive security backup. But at that time the risk was very real. Then Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa narrowly escaped death in 2006 and UNP strongman Ranjan Wijeratne was blown-up by a terrorist bomb in 1991. That is now old hat. The vast majority in the country regard the security accorded to former presidents costing billions totally disproportionate to today’s reality. Hence the decision to limit the task to the police and withdraw the military from the security contingents provided to former leaders. The public have already been treated to photographs of former Presidents Mahinda Rajapaksa and Sirisena posing for group photographs with their departing guards.

Much of the manpower in the police force is assigned to the so-called presidential and ministerial security divisions at the cost of regular policing for the benefit of all the people of the country rather than a few individuals. One advocate of the retention of MR’s security argued that nothing would be saved by the withdrawal of the military as the personnel involved would report back to their detachments and continue as paid soldiers. This contention is not entirely lacking in merit. But its proponent did not take into account that there are factors other than emoluments coming into play. But these would not certainly run into the billions as the total tab does.

Quite apart from the security cost, the other entitlements former presidents draw including pensions, suitable housing, vehicles, office entitlements etc. cost the taxpayer a pretty penny. CBK recently went on record saying she receives a monthly pension of Rs. 94,000 which was not paid for nine years by the MR regime until it was restored by yahapalana. With or without arrears, she did not say. She claims she spends heavily on repairs and maintenance of her official mansion on Independence Avenue, funded by selling her land. She had returned seven assigned vehicles in 2020 in view of the country situation. Currently she has four, two for herself and two for security and she doesn’t mind if those are recalled as she’ll travel by bus.

Maithripala Sirisena, who once solicited public contributions to settle a Rs. 100 million penalty imposed on him by court over the Easter bombs, says he finds security he does not need a hindrance and he doesn’t mind withdrawal. Apart from security, where else the fat will be trimmed is not yet public as the KT Chitrasiri report on these as well as MPs perks and privileges are yet under study. But there is not an iota of doubt that public opinion strongly favours doing away with these and other perks, particularly MPs’ life pensions after just five years of parliamentary service.