Attributing the demoralization of the public service to politics, Economic Reforms Minister Milinda Moragoda said the Sri Lanka Administrative Service after independence became a body working for a Government elected by the people.

“The opportunities were tremendous. We had the chance to create a public service that was independent of political interference, working only in the interests of the people and remaining the same whenever there was a change of Government,” said Mr. Moragoda recently at the AGM of the Chartered Management Institute.

He said the service, while carrying out the wishes of the people through the politicians, should be totally professional in its rendering of advice and training and non-partisan in carrying out its tasks.

“Instead, what happened was that the Sri Lanka Administrative Service became the servant of politicians rather than of the people. It became a service that slowly, over the years, lost its professional edge,” he said.

He also observed that training of new public servants was watered down by political appointees serving the interests of their political masters.

“Many of this new breed of so called public servants did not have the training required to make them truly Independent and things started to go wrong,” observed Mr. Moragoda.

“Had we seen our mistakes then it would still have been possible to create a public service that was truly non partisan, professional and willing to serve whichever political party was in government at that time”, said Mr. Moragoda.

Such a non-partisan approach, he said, would have ensured good advice and a willingness to point out where things go wrong.

As the years passed, he observed, public servants found their political masters made mistakes, but politicians were unprepared to take the blame for those mistakes and government servants were blamed instead.

Inquiry followed inquiry and as significant numbers in the Sri Lanka Administrative Service became evermore partisan in their activities they were drawn into the turmoil of the political fray, he said.

“Those public servants who attempted to maintain a non partisan line were criticised and sidelined by the politicians. The policy became one of do as you are told or else,” said Minister Moragoda.

As each new government came into office, he said, they spent more and more of their time blaming the previous administration for the problems of the nation.

But the people, who were always left behind to take the blame were the government servants, he said.

“Now imagine yourself in such a position. In the knowledge that if you carried out any orders by the current political masters that you would be blamed by the next set of political masters that came into office. What would you do?”, said Minister Moragoda.

Attempting to answer his question he said public servants would take the line of least resistance.

“You would aim to do nothing. For in that way you could not be blamed or censured. In that way you could protect your job and safeguard the income that you needed to support your family,” he said.

In short the bureaucracy that has slowly built up over the past fifty four years has evolved into one that aims to do nothing, for that is the safest approach. A bureaucracy which has become: ‘the Dracula of institutional behaviour’, which are the words which Jack Welch, Chairman and CEO of General Electric Company, used to describe bureaucracy. To extend this metaphor, it is the Dracula of institutional behaviour because it keeps rising from the dead after a stake has been driven through its heart and then sucks the blood of initiative and enterprise, he said.

He gave the example of the US$ 1 billion of overseas aid underutilised because of the burdensome bureaucratic procedures and said that money may be lost forever if we did not act quickly.

He said the Colombo-Matara Expressway is part of nearly $ 500 million available to build highways which has not been utilised so far because of regulatory and legal impediments.

According to surveys conducted by the donor community, another major bureaucratic obstacle is the fact that the procurement process in projects financed by foreign aid takes as long as the project life itself – one of the most inefficient in the world.

Minister Moragoda said as politicians have trusted the public servants less and less they have appointed more and more people, who they believed they could trust.

“And what of the career government servants?” he asked. “Well, they have become exactly that – people who see only the pursuit of maintaining their job and safeguarding their position. People, who no longer trust the politicians,” he said.

So, today we have a public servant, who prefers to delay rather then act and politicians, who increasingly sideline the Sri Lanka Administrative Service.

“If I paint a depressing picture of mistrust, inactivity and demoralisation on both sides then I have done well in my job. For that is exactly what we face,” said Minister Moragoda.

He said his new Government wishes to re-instate the government servant into a new position of trust. One where professionalism is restored and where the relationship is one of serving the people. “We seek to create a public service, where action is the key word to success. We face a long hard road to turn around many years of bad policies and inactivity,” he said.

He said when Dr. Mahathir Mohammad of Malaysia came into office he faced a similar problem but he looked with fresh eyes at the way government should work and that should be the starting point here.

“For me the job of Government is to provide the right environment for wealth to be created, with the minimum number of laws and the greatest amount of freedom whilst protecting the public. Government should be about a partnership with the people. One where the Government raises taxes to do good and to do those things that others cannot do better,” he said.

In Malaysia the public service have become stakeholders in the future of their country and every one has an interest in seeing progress.

“It is a process where public servants work with the private sector rather than against them,” he said.

Explaining further, he said, with every business that does well the government is effectively a shareholder and reward comes through more taxes collected - not debilitating taxes that stop businesses from functioning but taxes that allow Government to do its job to help the growth of the country.

In Andhra Pradesh in India, Chandrababu Naidu has taken public service in a slightly different direction. It ensures faster service to the public, who pay for the right level of service.

“Here in Sri Lanka we can learn from both Andhra Pradesh and Malaysia. The time has come for a major change in the way we treat our public servants and the way we expect to be treated by them,” said Minister Moragoda.

He said the government hoped to re-introduce professional training and better standards including higher standards of advice given to politicians.

“We will also review the rules and regulations that have been designed for other eras. For example the Administrative Rules and Financial Regulations known as AR’s and FR’s are archaic rules inherited from the British and they have to be updated urgently,” he said.

“We wish to introduce a system where the best get accelerated promotion and where politics is taken out of the system. In future a public servant should get a promotion based on his or her talents rather than who he or she knows,” claimed Minister Moragoda.

He said the public should benefit from public servants, who have an interest in the private sector performing well while bonuses and better pay should be the reward along with a real chance of promotion for the rest.

“Then and only then can we hope to have a public service that genuinely puts the public first. An enabling public service that helps people to succeed because it is in their interest to do so and where service is of paramount importance,” said Minister Moragoda.

He called for a review of all draconian legislation (such as the provisions for Presidential Commissions of Inquiry) that impede decisive action and risk taking in the Public Service.

“Strong punishment for corruption and other criminal acts is important and should be pursued with vigour,” he said.

He called for a new climate where political victimisation and scapegoatism of public servants are stopped.