Chari de Silva leaves Caltex and begins long career at Aitken Spence

A business leader remembers

by Charitha. P. de Silva

(Continued from last week)

Gaddum offered me the job of accountant shortly after I had passed out as a Chartered Accountant in 1955. Thornton offered me the job of Chief Accountant. I told him that unfortunately I was heavily involved in the Compensation Claim for Caltex and could not let them down. We parted and he wrote me a charming letter. After this experience I got Bertie Casie Chetty to sign all the documents that would be used in the case.

Meanwhile Jim Wollahan, who had developed a huge regard for me, offered me employment as an expatriate. I declined it for a number of reasons. Firstly I had no great desire to live the life of a nomad abroad, traveling from one country to another. Secondly, I knew that it was quite likely that I would be posted to some Asian country like India or Malaysia. My colleagues in those countries, who would be as well qualified as I was, would be earning much less than I did (being an expatriate). In those circumstances it was unlikely that they would cooperate wholeheartedly with me, or view me with great affection.

Around 1962 the government finally took over the assets of the oil companies. The employees were offered handsome severance packages and the staff at Caltex dwindled to a skeleton. At this point, I received my third offer to join Aitken Spence where Jack Reeves had taken over from Mike Thornton, and Ron Law the Chief Accountant had given notice of resignation. I evaluated the two choices before me: either become an expatriate with Caltex or the Chief Accountant of Aitken Spence. I had already foreseen the problems I would be faced with as an expatriate. In any case three unsolicited offers from the same company within ten years seemed too much like Fate. I therefore accepted Aitken Spence’s offer after informing Harry Bernard and Geof Gardiner of my decision. They were sad about it but very understanding. They were also generous, because despite the fact that I was employed by Aitken Spence the day after I left Caltex they paid me the full Compensation Package!

And so it came about that on September 1, 1963 I became the Chief Accountant in-waiting of Aitken Spence. Ron Law whose office I shared remained there for three months during which I learned the ropes. The top men of AS were Jack Reeeves (Chairman), Roy Hinton, Eldsworth Van Langenberg, and Louis Samarawickrema (Directors). The Assistant Chief Accountant was A. Ranganathan a clever Chartered Accountant who was thoroughly familiar with the intricacies of the day-to-day accounting. After Law left and I took over, I allowed Ranganathan to handle the Accounts and I concerned myself with overall policy and personnel matters because there was no HR director. This arrangement worked very smoothly because I detested accounts and Ranga loved them.

Within my first six months I did something which showed the staff that I was a firm (but fair) disciplinarian. It came to my notice that the clerk in charge of tea purchases was cheating us. It became apparent to me, on investigation, that the Chief Clerk who was a powerful individual, had been aware of the fraud and blackmailing the fraudster for his monthly cut. I held an inquiry and sacked the Chief Clerk for being aware of dishonesty and not bringing it to my notice. That was a powerful signal of my views on honesty and my readiness to act when necessary.

Jack Reeves was a kindly, gentle person, who was on the verge of a nervous breakdown because the Chairmanship job in Colombo was too much for him; he had led a comfortable, stress-free working life as Chairman of Clark, Spence & Co. Ltd (a subsidiary of AS) a shipping company at Galle. It was quite painful for me to watch him struggling to sign a document. Because he was a weak man and the two senior directors Roy Hinton and Eldsworth Van Langenberg were equally strong men he compromised and appointed both of them as Joint Managing Directors, a not very satisfactory arrangement.

However, the company continued to run reasonably smoothly, because we were a typical Agency House doing Shipping (Eldsworth), Insurance (Louis) and Estate Management (Roy) and more recently Printing (Roy) with machinery brought down from Galle where Clark Spence had been running a printing press. The directors did not interfere with each other. I was in charge of the Accounts Department, Secretarial work and Personnel. Whenever there was a major difference of opinion between the two strong men it was I who determined the final decision because I would support what I thought was the correct view.

Within one and a half years I was appointed Finance Director. Jack decided that the strain was too much for him, and quit, leaving for England where he settled down in Chichester. When it came to appointing the next Chairman, the rivalry between Roy and Eldsworth was resolved by their agreeing to take it in turns, with Roy taking the first stint.

I recall an amusing incident involving the Minutes. I used to draft the Minutes of the Board Meetings, and found to my annoyance that Roy used to make numerous minor changes such as “in view of the fact that” where I had used the single word “because”. I stomached this for some time and when my patience ran out I came to a board meeting one day armed with books such as “The Concise Oxford Dictionary”, and “Modern English Usage” by Fowler. Much in the manner of a QC in the Courts, I set the books down next to me, and analyzed all the ‘improvements’ that Roy had made in the latest draft minutes. I established that they were not material improvements and amounted to nothing more than a waste of time. From that day onwards Roy did not attempt to improve on my drafts in any way. Years later he admitted to me that he greatly admired my mastery of English.

At about this time, during my first year, Ranga who was the Employer representative on our Clerical and Subordinate Staff Benefit Fund (an approved private provident fund) came to me and told me that he was rather worried about the number of ‘Distress’ Loans that the staff were raising from the Fund. Under the rules all they needed for a loan was to establish need. I told him to bring me the Box File of loan applications that was under his control. One look at it was enough for me to see that the medical certificates justifying the distress loans were fraudulent. They were all, almost without exception, from one Ayurvedic Physician at Gampaha.

I told him to get into his car and drive straight away to the address at Gampaha. He came back within two hours and reported, exactly as I had expected, that there was no such physician at the address. I thereupon, without a moment’s delay, sent for the last applicant for a loan, who was blessed with an illustrious name, H.W. Jayawardena (the same as J.R. Jayewardene’s distinguished brother, a QC). I sat him down opposite me with Ranga seated alongside, and asked him kindly where he had got the medical certificate from. One thing was certain: that it was not from the purported Ayurvedic Physician because Ranga had just driven there and found that no such person existed.

He was so shattered by this news that he told me the truth, exactly as I had expected. He had got it from the head peon, Velayuthan, for a payment of Rs 5.00. He wrote the whole story down, and signed the confession ending with the statement that it was voluntarily made, without any threats posed, or inducements offered, by me to him, in the presence of Ranganathan. I thereafter told him to wait in the next room (Ranganathan’s) while I questioned the head peon. I sent for him, confronted him with Jayawardena’s confession and asked him where he had got the certificate from. He told me that he had got it from Jurangpathy, a clerk in the Shipping Department. He wrote out a full confession. I thereafter sent for Jurangpathy, who told me that he had got the bogus certificates printed at Sarath Printers, Nugegoda. He too wrote a full confession. I had given none of them time to consult their Trade Union. That afternoon I drove to Sarath Printers myself, and traced the Order that had been placed for the printing of the medical certificates.

It turned out that practically all our staff had benefited from these loans and there was a small group of clerks in the Head Office who were selling these bogus certificates after filling them out in Sinhala, for Rs 5.00 each. I discovered that even the clerks in Trincomalee (where we had a branch) had benefited from this scheme and sent their payments by Postal Order to the General Post Office that was within walking distance of us, in favour of another clerk in the ring. I walked across to the GPO and with the permission of the Post Master went through all the Postal Orders of the previous month and discovered a few from our office in Trinco in favour of Samsudeen, one of the head-office malefactors. I took photocopies of those that I found and returned to the office.

Since it was neither practicable nor fair that I should treat all participants in this fraud alike, I drafted Show-Cause letters to the ringleaders, and after receiving their totally unacceptable replies, dismissed them having consulted the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon. They were all members of Bala Tampoe’s Trade Union, the CMU.

They all appealed to a Labour Tribunal. There was an Inquiry at which I was the only witness, and the verdict was that they were all guilty of fraud. They remained dismissed and we did not have to pay any compensation. I have related this episode at length because it was a good example of lightning action; action that was so quick that the employees had no time to consult lawyers or even their Union. There was an interesting aftermath to the whole affair. Hinton wanted to reprimand Ranga for not spotting the fraud that had gone on for over seven years. I was totally against it because it was Ranga who had, even belatedly, alerted me to it. I pointed out to Hinton and Eldsworth that if we pulled him up it would be a disincentive to him ever alerting me in future to any irregularity that he discovered. 1, in fact, did just the opposite. I congratulated him on exposing the fraud. This, I think, was an excellent example of Emotional Intelligence winning over knee-jerk reactions.

(Excerpted from CP de Silva’s Memoirs)