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“Public service now a govt. service”
Deshamanya
Bradman Weerakoon, who served nine Sri Lankan heads of State, in
a career spanning half-a-century, is of the opinion that the public
service has become a “government service,” which now serves
the government of the day, and not the people.
“The public service has been changing over time, into a government
service. Now it serves the government of the day – this is
not quite right,” he asserted, in an interview with The Bottom
Line.
Weerakoon strongly believes that the public service should try to
improve itself by not being so suppliant and submissive to higher
authority and adopting an attitude of independence instead, which
is a crying need today.
“Public interests come first – not the preservation of
a government. Governments come and go, but the public goes on forever,”
he affirmed
Q:
What are the key learnings you received during your period as a
public servant/secretary?
A: It’s a long period. I must have served for 30 years,
directly. Then, I was outside, and came back again, so it’s
about 45 years in the capacity of a public servant.
The first thing I learnt was the need to try and help people, the
idea of assisting people, since Sri Lanka was a poor country. Being
a developing country, there were many people who needed help. I
learned that you have to listen very carefully – not go in
with misconceptions of what they needed – and try and feel
their real needs.
I got a sense of the many things they wanted – they wanted
security, they were keen on doing things for children, they were
keen on health and they were keen on developing themselves.
I also sensed the need for equality – a need for an equal society.
When I went in, coming from a certain social class which was advantaged,
I learnt very early on that much of the world wasn’t like that.
Those who knew English could get a job easily and thought of themselves
as privileged. But a great many people could not. They needed assistance.
The cards seemed stacked against them. Society hadn’t given
them much of a place. It took time for them to get to places and
get their needs attended to – be it going to school, getting
to a hospital for treatment, or to government offices.
I learnt early that you had to be extremely open and accessible
and you had to take it with an attitude of sympathy, even kindness.
You had to be kind. I realised later on, that you can reach people
in that way and they could be very appreciative.
What they don’t like is rough behaviour by public servants.
Too many public servants are rough and short with people. They don’t
have time for people. I learnt that it was more important to think
about those people – the ones who are on the other side of
the fence.
I did a lot of reading – both English and Sinhala literature.
When thinking about equality, I was thinking about other races and
other groups and minorities. I was thinking about the other side.
There isn’t enough of that here. If you go into certain traditional
or class backgrounds and if you take certain religions, you must
look at the other side.
Buddhist should be thinking of Christian people; Christians should
be thinking of Buddhist people. They should be thinking about Hindus
and Muslims and how they are feeling and why they are doing what
they do.
As a government agent, I tried to get to know a lot about other
people, respect them, try and participate in their ceremonies, understand
them and appreciate them. And they appreciated that. I learnt that
a lot of understanding was necessary.
I did a very interesting subject in the university – sociology.
I did economics first. I found that sociology was so important and
so interesting. It was very important to understand people and society.
It was all to do with how people live and why they live that way
and to be appreciative of the fact that they were different –
how they eat differently, dress differently and talk differently.
It was a rich experience to meet people and interact with them.
That’s something I learnt through sociology.
Q: You have had the unique distinction
of serving nine Sri Lankan heads of State, in a career spanning
half-a-century. How would you describe the leaders under whom you
served? What kind of leaders were they?
A: They were different kinds – they were all sorts of
people who came from all sorts of backgrounds. There was one woman,
Sirima Bandaranaike. She was very interesting. She was just starting
off her first career in public service after being the wife of a
very prominent Prime Minister, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike. She was pushed
into place and had to do the job, which she did extremely well.
She was very thorough and disciplined and learnt a great deal on
the job.
If you take S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, he was a highly intellectual
sort and he dealt with problems in that way. He spent a long time
analysing problems. John Kotelawela was quite quick and almost impulsive
in the way he reacted to situations.
Dudley Senanayake was very clam and quite collected. Internally,
he must have been quite perturbed but outside, he was very calm
– he exuded calmness. He was a man of immense ability and learning.
He read a lot.
Vijayananda Dahanayake was for a short period, but he was an extremely
interesting person with all kinds of views – some modern and
some old views.
Then Ranasinghe Premadasa – he had a fantastic mind. He would
think of doing the unusual thing. He would always look for the other
path – not the common, well-trodden path.
Ranil Wickremesinghe was very careful and had a learned attitude.
He was a very disciplined and courageous man. He didn’t regard
popularity as being important. He wasn’t so concerned with
being popular, as doing the correct thing.
Q: As secretary, you dealt with
the public sector and the government machinery. What were the real
challenges you faced during this period?
A: There were enormous challenges. When it came to government machinery,
the real challenge there was to motivate them – especially,
those who worked with a sense of how important it was to do things
to assist themselves. They needed to realise that it was not so
much to do with themselves. All bureaucracies were keen on looking
out for themselves and improving themselves.
One of the first things to do was to make them try and look outward.
They were a fortunate group – with paid jobs, overtime payments,
and facilities such as holidays and railway warrants, and no income
tax. They had very good material benefits. They were privileged
to have those benefits in a poor country.
There were so many opportunities to do good – everytime you
listen to a person and his complaint, even by listening to them,
you were a counsellor. They had no one else to speak to. You had
to be patient and not fog them off with false promises, asking them
to come again. You had to learn to spend less time on yourself and
more time on public service. I had to get that into the public service.
When it comes to the public sector, on the periphery, when I was
a government agent, the main challenge I found was poor or slow
development, on account of various reasons. One of the biggest reasons,
I felt, was that the people were not given their due as a democratic
people. It was still top-down.
Somebody was doing it for them. I saw much benefit in changing it
around and saying, ‘let’s give you the power, let’s
give you the responsibility, let’s sometimes even give you
the money – you do it.’
Those holding power were afraid to let go. Power was there at various
points in the system but, that power was retained by the powerful.
It happened at all levels from Members of Parliament to other officials.
The major challenge was how to give power to the people and make
them responsible.
This problem is still present. In fact, it can be called the challenge
of devolution. How do you devolve what you have, instead of jealously
keeping it for yourself and deriving benefits from it? That is a
central problem in Sri Lanka.
The other major challenge was to deal with matters in a non-violent
way. How do you get non-violent results? How do you try to not use
the might of your power all the time? It is easy to use might –
for a thug in a village to go around brandishing a sword or a knife
and demand that things be done.
It is more difficult to do the other – to talk about problems.
The major problem at the centre was that – getting people to
move from using power and using and allowing the position they have
to make it easy for others to live as well. The tug of war and peace
is part of that.
If you don’t like someone, you don’t hit him on the head,
that’s not the way to do it. You have to find out why he is
behaving that way and what you can do to bring him into the main
picture.
Q: What are the steps that could
be taken to improve the public service?
A: Reorientation – there must be reorientation of what
your major tasks and duties are and what your major responsibilities
are towards your people in a democratic country. You must look at
how democracy works and how the public service could become more
responsive to democratic needs.
Equality – how to work towards a more equal society, a more
prosperous society, a more healthy society – I don’t think
the public service is really geared to that, and I don’t know
why.
Many institutes teach how you should improve the public service
and how you should govern but somehow, I don’t see it going
to more than a fraction of the public service – about 10%.
It’s still that old selfish attitude of caring only for one’s
self.
The other area in which I think the public service should try to
improve itself, is by not being so suppliant and submissive to higher
authority.
When anyone comes along and flaunts authority, the people feel the
need to cringe and adopt a ‘please the boss’ mentality.
If the boss is doing what is right, go 100% and do it, but if the
boss is doing what is wrong, speak up.
That attitude of independence is needed in the public service. Every
individual person must feel that he is an important person. Even
if he is a clerk or the man sweeping the garden, he must feel that
he is important and that he must be respected for the work that
he is doing.
If the authority on top only wants his will done, then the people
will be uninterested and will do the least amount, just to show
that they are doing their jobs. But they won’t put their heart
into it. Whatever their job, they must put their heart and soul
into it. They must go in saying they will spend eight hours doing
things for the people and think about how they should use this time
doing things they are paid to do.
Some public servants even take money from the people for the services
they provide; even to get a file out, they take money from a poor
man. It’s horrible – they haven’t learnt anything.
They should realise how privileged they are already and try to help
the people. If they do that, this will be a wonderful country in
a few years.
The public service is terribly important. I’m glad you asked
that question. There are one million people working in the public
service, excluding the armed services – that’s another
350,000 or so. The public is paying for those services through duties,
taxes and so on. What is the public getting in return?
What we should try to think about when trying to improve the public
service is how to get that attitude to improve. You can train them
as much as you like, but until you get that attitude changed in
the public service, skills will still remain at one level.
To have an efficient public service, it should be a public service.
What is a public service? The public service has been changing over
time, into a government service. Now it serves the government of
the day – this is not quite right.
Public interests come first – not the preservation of a government.
Governments come and go, but the public goes on forever.
Q: In your opinion, what singular
thing did you do for the country or a leader that you consider your
best achievement through the service you rendered?
A: Strangely enough, I think it happened right at the end
of my public service career, in the last stages. I joined the public
service in 1954 – in the 50s of the last century. But maybe
my best achievement was in the first years of this century. I think
all of that came to a fusion.
It’s what I was able to do during the last two or three years
that I served. It was said to be a peace process that failed, but
at that time, I felt that I was able to do something of real value
– to be able to try and help in the whole process of moving
from a war situation to a peace situation.
It seemed to capture all those ideas I’d been struggling with
– of equality of races, religions, cultures and sexes of this
country. To try and bring some light into the lives of people, whose
lives had been devastated by bombs, death, armies moving through
their villages and those in the border villages facing immense hardship
with no food or jobs. Even in the southern parts, many were without
jobs. It was a terrible plight during the 2000 time. People lived
in fear, wondering when a bomb would go off and when a family member
would be killed. From the Central Bank to the Dalada Maligawa –
wherever you were, you were fearful.
I thought to myself that at last here was an opportunity of helping
and trying to put a stop to that and bringing back some light and
some hope in the future, where the people could equally share the
north, south, east and west of the country. It was a special moment
in my life.
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