The wet paint of opportunism

Town Hall fence painted blue after Mayor's group joins SLFP - News item

President orders fence re-painted green - News Item.

The next time you pass the Colombo Town Hall look out to see whether it has been painted blue or green, just because Colombo's Municipal Commissioner thought that a change of colour was good for a change.

We must believe it was a coincidence that the Municipal Commissioner got this idea of a change from green to blue only after Mayor Uvais M. Imtiyas and Spectacle Group in the CMC decided to dump the UNP and join the SLFP. It was also pure coincidence that the colour of the UNP is green and that of the SLFP, blue. If cross-overs are common among politicians, such leaps among bureaucrats remain largely unreported. The fact is that most senior public servants of today keep a range of ties, shirts or shawls of different colours for a switch to what is considered the winning colour the moment a political change takes place.

Colombo's Municipal Commissioner may be a person who does not keep such political wear handy. Instead he keeps buckets of paint of political colours on the ready, to paint a fence or two just for a change, when the going for a particular colour looks tempting and good.

Painting for political advantage is nothing new to us. The moment there is a change of colour in government, most ministries, departments, state corporations and other institutions spend a considerable amount of their allocations on changing the colour of signboards, letterheads and other material, in a rush of opportunism to show they are of the right colour.

To some bureaucrats this "trooping of the colour" is the success of their progress in the public service, with their ability to fool empty headed politicians with their mastery of political switch over. Such turncoats in the administration never serve the public; all they do is keep fawning before their temporary political masters till it's time for the next change of colour.

The sudden painting of the Town Hall fence in blue in a rush to cover the green paint that has been its pleasant colour for many decades, reminds me of what happened when Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike was elected the world's first woman Prime Minister in July 1960. Shortly after there was a demand by some colour-crazy opportunists that the new Prime Minister order her old school, St. Bridget's Convent, to change the colour of its tie from green and white to blue and white, because green and white were the traditional colours of St. Bridget's even before she joined it, and she had no interest in ordering or requesting any change. Those who asked for this change were not aware, or not bothered, that blue and white were already the colours of Holy Family Convent.

A timely satire on the changing of political is seen in a current TV ad featuring Wilson Gunaratne, the inimitable star of Charita Hathak. He gets into a vehicle with shawls of many colours round his neck and asks the driver to take him on time. "Where to?" the driver asks. "Wherever I can be sworn in", he says.

Ignorance

The Colombo Municipal Commissioner who wanted the Town Hall fence painted blue for change has been wholly ignorant of the fact that green is the official colour of the CMC, and has been so from even before independence, when party politics entered the electoral system in a big way. It has been so even before Mr. J. R. Jayewardene and SWRD Bandaranaike cut their political teeth as members of the Council.

On an earlier occasion when the SLFP controlled the CMC with Mr. Fowzie as Mayor, there was a question asked in Parliament by a member of the SLFP as to why the CMC letterheads continued to have the text printed in green, and not in blue, the colour of the ruling party. It was Dr. N. M. Perera, himself a former mayor, who explained to the concerned MP and Parliament that green was the official colour of the CMC for all signage, which included its flag and its stationery.

Incidentally, the Municipal Commissioner in office at the time Dr. N. M. Perera was mayor did not get a bright idea of changing the colour of the Town Hall Fence from green to blue, unlike today's Commissioner. It was the same when Mr. Fowzie was Mayor of Colombo. The then Commissioner resisted powerful ministerial moves to change the CMC colour from green to blue. It appears that the colour calculations of the Municipal Commissioner have gone awry, with his inability to judge the political trends in the country.

His obviously limited powers of thinking were only able see the change in political colour of those who controlled the CMC, which is his domain, but did not see the larger picture.

He was blissfully unaware that at the time he began covering the green on the Town Hall fence with blue, there were negotiations on between the SLFP at the UNP and the national level.

Shortly after Mayor Imtiyas joined the SLFP, the UNP signed the MoU with the SLFP, which would have made the Municipal Commissioner wonder whether he should paint half the Fence blue and the other half green. The problem would have been deciding which half should be green or blue.

Thankfully, the Municipal Commissioner has been saved the worry of making these calculations, with President Mahinda Rajapaksa ordering that the colour of the Fence be restored to its original green. It was an order that should have been given earlier by Mayor Imtiyas.

In the end it was left to the President, who is the leader of the SLFP, to order that the original colour should remain.

This decision must cause concern to many public officers making their various calculations about a change of the colour of one's tie, shawl or shirt to sail smoothly with the new political winds blowing.

The President's order has put an end to one glaring example of political opportunism in public affairs. There's many more of it that needs weeding out.

But one question remains. Who is to meet the cost of paint and labour incurred by the CMC to satisfy the Municipal Commissioner's desire for a change of colour on the Town Hall fence? It can't be the ratepayers of Colombo.

Over to you, Your Worship Mayor Imtiyas.