{"id":156999,"date":"2016-02-06T00:00:21","date_gmt":"2016-02-05T18:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=156999"},"modified":"2016-02-10T14:04:09","modified_gmt":"2016-02-10T08:34:09","slug":"merit-governance-the-vacant-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/merit-governance-the-vacant-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"Merit, Governance & The Vacant Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rajan Hoole<\/span><\/a> \u2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/a>

Dr. Rajan Hoole<\/p><\/div>\n

Present Realities and Precarious Options<\/span><\/a> \u2013 VIII<\/strong><\/p>\n

The governance of this country has long been set on a course where merit receives its due place mainly by accident. A good example is our higher education. The chairman of the University Grants Commission is a political appointee and plays a major role in picking fellow commissioners. He advises the president on the appointment of the vice-chancellor of a university out of three names sent by the university council – there is bound to be one who can be trusted to be politically safe. About half the members of the council are outsiders recommended to the UGC chairman by the vice chancellor. This would in turn ensure that persons recommended by them are politically safe. An appointee who rocks the boat is out when his three-year term ends. It is not hard to see how merit is undermined down the line by a system of patronage intended to make the system safe for the rulers.<\/p>\n

The system reveals the mindset of those in power and of those appointed to positions. This marks the progressive breakdown of a system that has dispensed with rules. Building a robust economy in Sri Lanka would mean fostering a healthy engineering sector where local initiative and inventiveness are given their due place.\"chandrika-kumaratunga\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0However, the pattern is that a number of local politicians and bureaucrats have succumbed to, or become willing parties to, manipulation by big foreign firms and have established comfortable relations with them. Consequently, they prefer to deal with them rather than with local firms. What goes on is easy to guess, but difficult to prove. By comparison, local firms have the ability to do the work and to do it much cheaper, but are not so attractive to deal with. Local firms in the construction sector need often to rely on subcontracts from foreign firms.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The mechanical engineering sector, where the big plant is mostly state-owned, has been virtually run down. Where local engineers have devised innovative means to improve or re-use plant and machinery that would save the public considerable expense – such as in the transport sector – these have tended to be disregarded or discouraged. The tendency is to go for a package from a foreign company that is supported by a foreign loan. This would normally result in substantial replacement of plant. The decision often rests with a minister and senior bureaucrats without any overall policy framework or reckoning of benefits to the country.<\/div>\n
\n

Parallel to this phenomenon is the demand for the multiplication of cabinet portfolios. President Kumaratunga in her second term, like Premadasa and Jayewardene before her, has found it expedient to grant ministries or state ministries to more than 70% of the MPs supporting her in Parliament. What most of these eighty odd ministers, including forty odd cabinet ministers, want and do needs no guessing.<\/p>\n

This is a framework for undisciplined government. The country piles up foreign debt that is passed on to the poor through inflation and devaluation of the rupee. There can be no credible national plan of any shape. Concerned professionals have described this as a \u2018Vacant Economy\u2019 rather than an \u2018Open Economy\u2019 as it is mistakenly called. It is an economy where local sectors and skills are vacating. Violence and lawlessness are endemic to the arrangement, which goes back to 1977. Apart from ministers themselves, the right to contravene the law with impunity appears to be regarded as their patrimony by their offspring and cronies too. A conscientious law enforcement officer may suddenly find himself dropped by the system and his life imperilled. The system lacks the ability to accomplish basic tasks of urgent national interest.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

*To be continued..<\/em><\/div>\n
*From Rajan Hoole\u2018s \u201cSri Lanka: Arrogance of Power \u2013 Myth, Decadence and Murder<\/span><\/a>\u201d. Thanks to Rajan for giving us permission to republish. To read earlier parts click here<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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