Managing the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs – some anecdotes

LSSP not happy about former party man H.A. de S. Gunasekera being too powerful

By Leelananda de Silva

As senior assistant secretary, the management of the ministry (of Planning and Economic Affairs under the prime minister) was my responsibility. Management of what is a small- sized ministry (in terms of staff) is not a heavy burden. There was not much personnel management, unlike in ministries like education or health. The tasks were largely to do with the reshaping of the ministry, and its expansion to the districts.

It is my estimate that administration did not take more than five percent of my time. Although this work was not a heavy claim on my time, the responsibility for administration puts one in touch with almost everybody in the ministry and it gives you much more influence than it would have been if I was only the Director of Economic Affairs.

H.A.de.S (Gunasekara), the permanent secretary, was not interested or engaged in administrative matters, and he left me to get on with it. Instead of describing the repetitive tasks in administration which I had to deal with over seven years, I would confine myself to narrating a few of the more important of the tasks that I had to undertake. I shall also describe very briefly in this chapter several matters which I attended to as Director of Economic Affairs which appeared to be more administrative than substantive.

The Economic Affairs Division had taken over a rag bag of tasks which were undertaken by the now defunct private sector affairs division. Let me at this point describe the politics of the Ministry which also involved its reorganization. Under the previous government, the Ministry was known as the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs. When Mrs. Bandaranaike’s government came into power, the name of the Ministry was changed to Ministry of Planning and Employment. The idea was to stress the significance of the employment factor, as the new government had promised to create employment and that had to be highlighted in terms of ministry organization.

The internal ministry structure remained virtually the same as under the previous government, apart from adding a new division called the employment division. Mrs. Bandaranaike’s was a coalition government, and one coalition partner, the LSSP was not happy with Prof. H.A.de.S Gunasekara. They were anxious to curtail his authority and power. In 1973, they pressed for the Department of Plan Implementation to be taken out of the ministry and created as a separate ministry under another ministry secretary. It remained under the Prime Minister.

The objective was to curtail H.A.de.S’s powers. There was also pressure to move the External Resources Division to the Ministry of Finance, but that was firmly ruled out by the Prime Minister. When these changes occurred in 1973, the Ministry was once again renamed MY/P&EA. H.A.de.S felt very unhappy at this time and he left on some official mission leaving Dr. Ananada Meegama who was acting secretary and me to sort out the ministry reorganization and on which we worked with M.D.D. Peiris, Secretary to the Prime Minister.

An interesting task in administration was to oversee the expansion of the Ministry to the districts. H.A.de.S was anxious to establish a district planning mechanism, so that planning can be taken down to the district level. He was critical of earlier arrangements which, in his view, made the Planning Ministry look as if it was more connected with foreign bodies, than with domestic institutions and affairs. The decision was taken to establish district planning offices with a planning officer in charge, so that district level resources can be better utilized through establishment of a logical system of priorities for public expenditures.

One of the first questions that arose was whereto locate the district planning offices. There were those who argued that it should be an autonomous unit in the district. I argued for its location within the kachcheri and under the government agent. I had worked in kachcheries and I thought that it would be more effective if it was located there. There was the prospect that it could be the unit servicing district coordinating committees, making these bodies more effective.

H.A.de.S and the Prime Minister agreed with this arrangement and they were located in kachcheries. Financial provision was made to have new building space in the kachcheries. I prepared the cabinet paper on this subject. I lost touch with developments after 1977, when district administration became more political. However, a district planning mechanism would not be out of place whatever the system of provincial and district administration. The setting up of district planning offices constituted a major change in the system of district administration. I am very pleased to have been associated with this change.

With the setting up of district planning offices, and the expansion of the regional development division in particular, there was the need for more planning staff. I managed the process of recruiting about 50 planning officers over the period I was there. When these posts were advertised, there were a large number of applicants and we had to have at least three levels of interviewing these applicants. First we had a preliminary interview and weeded out about 80 to 90 percent of applicants. Then there was a second interview and the number was reduced to about thrice the number of potential recruits.

At this final interview, it was H.A.de.S who presided and I was there. I avoided sitting on the other interview boards as I was busy with my other tasks. Fortunately, we were able to get senor public servants from other ministries to sit on these boards. Through this expansion of numbers of planning officers, we were taking the first steps in creating a Planning Service.

When the Planning Service was being expanded, there emerged the need for two types of planning officers. Those going to the districts and working in regional planning, could manage with a basic level of English. The other divisions in the Ministry like external resources and economic affairs, with a heavy external orientation required officers who were competent in English. This created a problem in recruitment.

At this time, local universities could not supply sufficient graduates with a knowledge of English as required, specially in economics. So it was decided to recruit officers on a temporary basis on contract, at planning officer and assistant director levels. The Cabinet approved our proposal and through this process we were able to obtain the services of several highly qualified persons.

I remember that one of these recruits was Pat Alailima, originally from Sri Lanka and later living and working in Western Samoa. Mike Priestly, who was UNDP resident representative in Colombo knew her from his days in Western Samoa and it was he who suggested to me that she was highly competent. Pat Alailima went on to higher things later on, becoming director general of planning. It is sad that she died immediately after retirement.

Among others we recruited were Senaka Abeyratna (later a leading figure in culture and the arts), Naren Chitty (now a professor of media and communications at Macquarie University in Australia) and Sanjiva Senanayaka, later to be International Finance Corporation country director in Colombo. We also brought in one or two from the universities. Chandra Rodrigo was one of them, and she was later to be Professor of Economics at the University in Colombo. It was an enriching experience for her as well as for the Ministry. There was also Indrani Sri Chandrasekara who had worked earlier in the Central Bank.

The Census and Statistics Department, National Film Corporation (NFC), Water Resources Board and the Export Promotion Secretariat came under the Ministry, and I had to deal with whatever tasks that arose at the ministry level regarding these bodies. Three or four times I acted briefly as the Director of Census and Statistics. The Director at the time was L.B. Rajakaruna, a senior administrative service officer.

I had a difficult relationship with him. When he reached the age of 55, we suggested to the Ministry of Public Administration to transfer him as there was no prospect for him to obtain an extension from our Ministry. L.N. Perera was deputy in the department and he was a highly qualified statistician but the post of Director was scheduled as an administrative service post. In a very rare intervention, Mrs. Bandaranaike suggested that this post should go to L.N.Perera who was deputy director. So he was appointed, and Mrs. Bandaranaike’s intervention was certainly in the right direction. After all these years, we now had a specialized statistician as the head of the department.

The Chairman of the National Film Corporation was L. Piyasena, a confidante of the Prime Minister, and father in law of Gamini Dissanayaka. He was a kind and courteous gentleman. The general manager was D.B. Nihalsingha, who was later to be a leading personality in the film world. On the NFC board, there was always a lawyer or someone with a legal background. Wickrama Weerasooria was there at one stage.

Sometime in 1974, there was a vacancy for the legal slot on the board. I was attending a wedding at the GOH in Colombo and was seated next to G.L Peiris, then a young lecturer in law at the university (he was later to be Professor of law, Vice Chancellor, and important political personality). I asked him whether he was interested in being considered for a place on the board of the NFC. He said he was interested and he came to see me the next day in office, and I took him to H.A.de.S, and later, we recommended his appointment to the Prime Minister. He had a long tenure on the board and he tells me whenever I meet him that his interest in a public and political career originated with his experience on the board of the NFC.

The Chairman of the Water Resources Board (WRB) was the former Chief Justice, Hema Basnayake. Mr. Basnayake was interested in the rehabilitation of ancient irrigation works in the country and he had requested the Prime Minister for this job, in his retirement. The reason for locating the WRB in the Planning Ministry was that Mr. Basnayake was not prepared to serve under any minister, other than the Prime Minister. As chairman, he never came to see the permanent secretary of the ministry. He saw the Prime Minister on rare occasions.

Whenever there was any work relating to the WRB, H.A.de.S suggested to me that I should go and meet him at his office, taking into consideration his previous position in public life. I did see him from time to time and he was very courteous to me. He was deeply concerned with the rehabilitation of minor irrigation works in the dry zone. When he got to know that I had dealt with minor irrigation works years ago in Anuradhapura, he was happy to have more extended discussions with me. The Ministry of Irrigation did not want to hear much about this board.

(To be continued next week)

(Excerpted from the Long Littleness of Life an autobiography. The writer had an 18-year public service career serving as Senior Assistant Secretary and Director of Economic Affairs of the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affair in the 1970s working closely with Prime Minister Sirima Bandaranaike. He thereafter had an international career as Resident Representative of the Third World Forum in Geneva from 1980-2013 and thereafter serving as a senior international consultant for many UN and non-UN agencies.)