Nit-picking not in national interest
Constraints in State service
by Afreeha Jawad

Dr. Sumith Abeysiriwardena
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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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