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| Friday, 6 February 2004 |
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Men for all seasons Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha I have now found a much more entertaining pastime than counting sheep for when I have insomnia. Assisted by the three large red volumes of Budget Estimates for 2004, I count Ministers. Though these Red Books name no names but only Ministries, that is part of the entertainment. One can for instance try to guess who might be the Ministers of Agricultural Technology and Crop Productivity or of Paddy Cultivation Development, nestling in the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock. With luck one might fall asleep while pondering. If not, one can turn to one's trusty Central Bank Diary, and discover that they are Hemakumara Nanayakkara and D M Bandaranayake. Neither of them has any budgetary provision except to run their offices. Both get exactly the same amount of money, Rs 9,843,000 which is supposed to rise to 11,500,000 in 2005 and 2006. Both have staff inputs of 15 and the activities listed in their Project Profiles are almost identical. Almost, but not quite. Their entertainment value mounts. Nanayakkara has to assist the Hon Cabinet Minister to identify and evaluate Agriculture and Livestock sector needs, development potentials and new trends. Bandaranayake has to do all this and also assist to formulate policies and implementation strategies. What is wrong with Nanayakkara, you ask yourself? Is he not capable of formulating such policies? But then you look down the list and find that his third activity is to assist the Hon Cabinet Minister to formulate Agriculture and Livestock Policy and implementation strategies. Then you wonder why he has to do this separately, while Bandaranayake does it as part of his first activity. Does Bandaranayake have a more comprehensive mind? He certainly has more responsibilities, for he has a totally different third activity, namely to identify Paddy Cultivation needs to ensure optimum utilization of paddy lands. The second activity is identical for both. Bandaranayake's fourth is to establish strong and effective mechanisms for institutional strengthening, capacity building and extension services to farmers and other people involved in agribusiness companies. One wonders whether this means that farmers not involved in agribusiness companies will not benefit from Mr. Bandaranayake's efforts. Mr. Nanayakkara is similarly exclusive. His fourth activity is to establish strong and effective mechanisms for technology transfer to farmers and other people involved in agribusiness companies. At this stage, on the verge of nodding off, you realize that poor Mr. Choksy was doing the same when he was putting the finishing touches to his budget. Who can blame him? 65 ministries (and that is not dividing up those where the functions are patently different and exercised in different offices) cannot be easy for a man his age. One can assume he was given instructions to make up impressive sounding activities to justify all this expenditure by cutting and pasting on his computer. Just put in enough buzzwords, one can hear one of Ranil's whiz kid advisers saying, like 'strong and effective mechanisms', 'development potentials', 'technology transfer', and so on, and people will think their work is really important. Unfortunately, when an old man is falling asleep, he might forget to shift the terms around enough to sound convincing. One instance names have been shifted around, though without much conviction, is with regard to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Provincial Councils & Local Government. That Ministry, in what must rank as one of Ranil's more whimsical efforts, was given to Alick Aluvihare. Perhaps to confirm the joke element Ranil, or possibly Alick's nephew Chari who controls the purse strings, decided that the non-Cabinet Minister should have a different title. And so Earl Gunasekera is the Minister of Home Affairs, Local Government & Provincial Council (only one, poor soul, according to the Red Book, though the Central Bank Diary gives him more). Not entirely surprisingly, he has no Project Profile, no Project Objectives and no Activities. And in order to do whatever is expected of him in this happily irresponsible state, he has a budget of 13 million, 850,000 more than was estimated in 2003 and 3 million more than he spent in 2002. Why such a seesaw, you ask, the Big Red book now dropping from your hands as sleep begins to overtake you. Is it because he had 20 members of staff in 2002, which went up to 52 in 2003, 16 of these temporary? This year Choksy has decreed that these should be sent home, and the 36 permanent staff reduced to 25. Will Choksy succeed in this daring attempt to save public money? Sleep soundly, because even if you care, I don't think Choksy does. |
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