An Omnibus Cabinet & Outvoted Parliamentarians: Can The Economy Afford To Maintain This Colony Of Prodigals?

By Ameer Ali –September 7, 2015 

Dr. Ameer Ali

One of the horrendous legacies of the ousted MR regime was an economy burdened with oppressive debt, a culture of rampant corruption if not outright thievery, and gargantuan projects of colossal waste. The Mattala airport is the best example of such a project. Therefore it should be an obvious priority to the regime that just came in to take steps immediately to bring down the debt to manageable proportions, eradicate corruption and cut down the number of or cancel all wasteful projects. Prudence in public expenditure should be the first step that the government should adopt to move along that path.

The appointment of forty-eight ministers and thirty-seven deputy minsters, not because these minsters and their deputies are extremely talented and will contribute to the productivity and growth of the economy but just to reward party supporters and loyalists goes against the very grain of economic prudence. Is Sri Lanka such a huge and complex polity and economy that it demands the service of that many ministers and deputies with enormous salaries and perks? Can anyone tell the people the estimated total cost of this colony of artificially elevated political gentry? Will they fulfil their tax obligations? Who will check on their profligacy and punish for their incompetency and dereliction? Is there a mechanism to measure their performance and productivity?

In the past and long before the MR regime a much restricted number of ministers assisted by very able civil servants like for example, Dharmasiri Pieris and Bradman Weerakoon, only to name a couple, took the country and its administration from strength to strength even in the midst of political and economic crises. Is the country bereft of such civil servants now? If the answer is yes, then it conveys a sad tale about the recruitment procedure of the public servants. An amalgamation of small departments, appointment of able public servants and restriction of the number of ministries will prune down the cost of administration and waste.

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