Nit-picking not in national interest

Constraints in State service

by Afreeha Jawad

Whether we in this country will ever reach maturity is left to be seen. We've got our wires crossed on maturity and age and feel maturity to necessarily follow with age - Both 'Yes' and 'No' is the answer.

Mature people always overlook trivialities or what is called in common parlance 'small matters'. Small things worry small minds. Be it familial, community, organisational or national interest, the sooner we overlook pettiness, the greater the organisational growth. This is not to justify what is not in keeping with moral accountability. Looking into trivialities, counting on it for its daily occurrence when done in a manner that impacts negatively on the broader picture is most unhealthy for institutional growth.

Overlooking trivialities

Take for instance pin pointing one spelling mistake in a scholarly copy is a sure display of envy coming off immaturity. Missing out on the spirit of the law and going by what is limited to what the law perse stipulates is to injure creativity. In journalism what is important is productivity and richness of content in delivery, not where the journalist was and at what time talking to whom.

Applying the four Ws - why, when where and what, expected of a journalist in story writing to control his movements is to impact negatively on his or her output. This then is certainly not to licence abuse needless to say the need for a productivity tab. What's most hilarious is when red tape was applied at a university in with holding funds re-imbursement until one single envelope was accounted for, that killed a clever, youthful professor's interest in national development oriented research. Similarly upholding constitutional constraints will not help solve the ethnic conflict whereby the larger picture of national development is hampered.

Now, to this long winding and 'never will be over' list of nit-picking overlooking major national or institutional growth is a story from the Bathalagoda Rice Research and Development Institute (BRRDI). Now Bathalagoda is a sprawling land area of over 100 acres comprising only paddy. Not uncommon to Sri Lanka are a few coconut trees in every land holding and Bathalagoda is no exception.

Nitpicking nuts

The BRRDI's former chief Dr. Sumith Abeysiriwardena talking to the Sunday Observer last Tuesday was in fits of laughter recalling an audit query over the number of nuts plucked even in months off season. If the young professor was cheesed off on an explanation calling for an unaccounted envelope, what kept knawing this senior agro scientist was the inquiry into some nuts - unplucked ones at that hanging off trees right over the audit officer's head. If the pluck could be counted of nuts suspended up there, that surely is more than one relief for any coconut grower - to hell with pluckers, pickers and gatherers.

"You see this is what happened. They came in to audit in June 2005. The yield was available only up to April. How could one say that the number of nuts per palm for 2005 was only 8 when the yield was available only till April?" asked Dr. Abeysiriwardena.

"NO explanation would suffice and their word was final despite all their stupid questions flung at us."

Significantly, he also saw the need for the audit personnel to be accompanied by a field related technical officer. For instance if it is agriculture he should bring along an agro technical officer. Little wonder then of the stupidity in their thinking and all what goes as a communication break down.

Auditing for development

Dr. Abeysiriwardena while not denying the importance of auditing maintained that such auditing should be development oriented and not to kill the interest of keen technical personnel. Inefficient bureaucratic procedures and unreasonable auditing that de-motivates technical officers is not in the interest of the larger picture of a country as a whole. At managerial level he regretted the paper work involved of writing unending reports. "Finally I was tied down more to my desk than the field where I was ideally trained to be involved in agricultural research."

Study and service cut

Moving on to another glaring hazzle in public service he said, "All study leave extending beyond 3 1/2 years for a doctoral programme goes as no pay only to come back and find junior officers promoted to higher levels despite no PhD qualifications.

At the interview the no pay service period beyond 3 1/2 years is deducted. "In promotions what is considered is the active service period while t he no pay period I believe is considered inactive. Invariably the juniors minus PhD get more years to their service, making the PhD holder their juniors. This is the irony of ironies," said Dr. Abeysiriwardena laughingly adding, "this is how qualifications lead to disqualification."

"But then the AR administrative rule allows no pay for medical purposes, to join one's spouse overseas or even employment. But the saddest part is we go abroad for studies, come back to serve the country and get even the active service reduced."

The great discrepancy in salaries of government servants also leads to frustration. Both inter ministerial and intra ministerial salary discrepancies also brings in much frustration affecting national development.

Responsibility versus authority

The conflict in responsibility and authority also demoralises public servants. For instance the authority to use the allocated Rs. 10,000 in an emergency cannot be realized because what the technical officer sees as urgent is not seen as such by the audit officer.

Yet another inefficient bureaucratic procedure is the need to call for tenders for expenses over Rs. 500, which sum does not keep abreast of commodity price increase impacting negatively on national development.

"All in all a government servant is like an elephant carrying the tooth relic while being chained on all fours," he quipped.

Dr. Abeysiriwardena certainly does not deny political leadership. "That's the system. I have no qualms about it. But my point is that interference should be constructive not destructive in the interest of national development." "Corruption should be handled by the rule of law but such destructive measures will not augur well for the country because it brings in de-motivation."

Goodbye

Incidentally, despite coming within the ambit of law extending his working years to another five, Dr. Abeysiriwardena for obvious reasons opted to serve CIC and help initiate and develop its agri business venture. It will compete with imported Basmati varieties and hopefully save much foreign exchange by restricting imports or even help export the high quality local variety to earn foreign exchange.

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