Bazillion problems, countless councils

Thursday 15th September, 2022

The only thing successive governments have done efficiently by way of problem solving, all these years, is to set up numerous committees, commissions, councils and task forces. These outfits have served little purpose, and the country continues to be beset with a bazillion problems including bankruptcy.The incumbent administration has undertaken to set up an outfit called the National Council (NC), which will be tasked with ‘determining the general priorities of Parliament to guide the formulation of short, medium and long-term national policies, and agree on short and medium-term common minimum programmes in respect of the stabilization of the economy’. Parliament is scheduled to take up for debate a resolution to this effect on 20 Sept.

National policies are a prerequisite for development, and the absence thereof enables politicians to meddle with vital sectors and ruin them when governments change. What we have at present are ‘government policies’, which undergo sea changes or are deep-sixed when the administrations that formulate them fall; the need is for ‘state policies’ that survive governments. A move to put in place a mechanism to formulate national policies is therefore welcome, but it is a task that should be left to real experts from the public service, professional associations, etc; politicians ought to opt for a supportive role without making a botch of it.

The proposed NC reminds us of the National Executive Council (NEC) set up by the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration after the 2015 regime change to steer its 100-day programme. It did not live up to people’s expectations as evident from the UNP-led UNF’s failure to secure a clear parliamentary majority at the 2015 general election. This is the fate that awaits councils, committees and other such outfits when they become overpoliticised.

It is too early to say what the NC will be like, much less whether it will work. The proof of the pudding is said to be in the eating. It is hoped that the NC will not go the same way as the Constitutional Council (CC) during the Yahapalana government, and the current Parliamentary Council. The CC became a rubber stamp for the UNP-led UNF, and did not serve the purpose it was set up for. The then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had it under his thumb. The less said about the Parliamentary Council, the better; it became a mere appendage of the Rajapaksa administration.

The NC will comprise the Speaker (Chair), the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the House, the Chief Government Whip and not more than 35 MPs nominated by the party leaders, according to media reports. It will be vested with powers to call for reports from the Sectoral Oversight Committees, the Committee on Public Finance, the Committee on Public Accounts, the Committee on Public Enterprises, the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, the Committee on Ways and Means, the Committee on Economic Stabilization; and any Committee controlling Public Finance. Interestingly, out of the five key members of the powerful NC, four will be from the government—the PM, the Speaker, the Leader of the House and the Chief Government Whip. The SLPP controls the government, and Basil Rajapaksa controls the SLPP, as is public knowledge. Thus, there is the possibility of the NC being manipulated by those who are responsible for the country’s bankruptcy to further their interests on the pretext of formulating national policies. There’s the rub.

It will be an uphill task to find 35 capable MPs for the NC, which will be required to perform highly specialised tasks such as revitalising the economy. When one listens to parliamentary speeches, one feels sorry for most MPs as well as the country. Only a few of them could analyse the recent Interim budget properly and make sensible suggestions, which the government, however, did not take on board. Many MPs obviously did not know what they were talking about, and unable to discuss the budget, they launched into tirades against their rivals, wasting parliamentary time.One can only hope that the NC will not be full of misfits and failures.