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A couple of weeks ago I attended a retreat for Ministry Secretaries, which I found most rewarding. It was also quite heartening. Having worked under Tara de Mel at the Ministry of Education for six months last year, I had become deeply depressed after her departure. She understood what education was, and what it needed to be, and acted swiftly and purposefully. In short, under her the qualities Choksy so despaired of, planning and management and speed and transparency, were manifest in the Ministry.

But Choksy's own despair was also understandable given what followed. It would not be fair to blame her successor, for he acknowledges he is not an educationist, and that he needs guidance. But as he puts it, what he gets from his subordinates are papers marked 'forwarded'. And since he comes from a dispensation where several signatures are essential before action is taken, the Ministry seems stultified. The Prime Minister seemed to have realized this, in setting up a Committee chaired by his Secretary from the early 80s to recommend structural changes. But even this, I thought, would not work. The public service now was beyond repair. Tara had been an exception, able and willing to take responsibility and act only because she came from outside. So when I found Wickrama Weerasooria declaring at the retreat that all that was needed was decisiveness, I was inclined to agree, while also thinking it impossible.

Public servants I thought had had all initiative drained out of them by a political system that left them so thoroughly at the mercy of politicians.

So I was pleasantly surprised at the discussions to find a group of dynamic thinkers able and willing to enunciate their problems without diffidence. Initially I thought I was lucky in the group I was in, led by two powerful ladies whom even the most complacent Ministers were not likely to trifle with lightly. But later it seemed that other groups had been equally forthright; and amongst the Secretaries there was a camaraderie, and a recognition of their public responsibilities that led also to forthright criticism of the few in their midst they thought irresponsibly sycophantic. As one of them put it, in looking at the section about 'Rogue Ministers' in the Commonwealth Secretariat paper that was circulated, they also had to be careful about Rogue Secretaries.

The main problem as they saw it was that their Ministers had personal political agendas that often came into conflict with the national vision they should promote. Most of them, I should add, were fond of their Ministers, and accepted that they had to be politicians first and foremost.

Their critique was of the system that did not allow them to make clear to the Minister what he could and could not do. What they wanted then was, firstly, clear directives from the Prime Minister; secondly a system of solidarity that would enable them all to act consistently so as to safeguard certain principles. One of them had in fact been dismissed earlier by a Minister who had said quite directly that he wanted a Secretary who did what he said. The problem, it was pointed out, was that that particular Minister was back in the cabinet, and it was a moot point whether he still understood that his personal predilections should not ride roughshod over established principles of accountability. That Ranil wanted to put the public interest first none of them seemed to doubt. In that regard he was seen as much less indulgent than Chandrika.

But at the same time they despaired, because his actions had made it clear he simply had no understanding of reality. By appointing Ministers he knew were inadequate to certain key posts, he had given them licence to do what they knew best, which was certainly not what was best for the country. And in creating so many Ministries, he had made a mockery of the status of Secretaries, so that the creation of an elite group that could contribute to policy had become almost impossible.

Shelton Wanasinghe had suggested such a grouping in his proposals for Administrative Reform in the 80s. Those proposals had been forgotten in the tensions that then overtook the country. Chandrika, instead of using them as a base, had allowed an ADB review that made similar recommendations.

Again nothing was implemented. This could be put down to the lethargy that overtook most things in those days, but perhaps there was also a fundamental unwillingness to give up the political controls that had been enjoyed for so long.

The sad thing is that reform would be so simple if there were a will. But as the Secretaries made clear, unless there is political will to change, the decline will simply get worse. And today's politicians simply cannot understand that, as things get worse, their powers too will decline. They follow the philosophy ascribed to D.B. Wijetunge, that when one has the spoon one serves oneself. If the result is deprivation for the future, why, that will not be their problem.

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