Politicians and friends

Britain’s Minister of Defence Liam Fox resigned from his ministerial post on 14 October, after it was revealed that the best man at his wedding and friend, Adam Werritty, who had no official role in the Government, had posed as Fox’s adviser and met him 40 times in 16 months at the Ministry of Defence and on foreign trips, including trips to Sri Lanka.

Britain’s Prime Minister requested the Secretary to the Cabinet, Britain’s top civil servant, Sir Gus O’ Donnell (who, interestingly, it is said, signs off notations on the minute sheet of files with his initials – GOD!) to look into the matter and report.

Sir Gus found no evidence that Fox had profited from the access he gave Werritty, or that any public money was misused. Werritty received no classified information and did not influence British foreign policy. Neither was he a lobbyist.

Werritty was paid by a not-for-profit company Pargav, which did not seek to influence defence procurement decisions. Pargav was funded by Conservative Parry donors. Sir Gus however deplored Fox’s judgment in breaching Britain’s ministerial code of conduct, by allowing the perception to arise of a conflict between his public duties and private interests. He had ignored warnings from the Defence Ministry’s senior civil servants about allowing Werritty to attend certain meetings. Werritty’s access to the Defence Minister’s diary of overseas travel also posed a degree of risk.

Political culture of South Asia

The line between politicians, their friends and acquaintances and official civil servants has always been a fine one. In Britain ministers appoint advisers from outside the civil service to assist them to implement the policies they are elected to implement.

Sri Lanka allows ministers to recruit a number of staff outside the formal government service whose tenure lasts as long as the minister lasts and is paid for by the taxpayer. The influence over official governmental activities by these non officials and other friends, acquaintances, relatives and sundry hangers-on has always been an issue of contention.

The political culture of South Asia gives a great deal of latitude for these actors to get involved in government work. In some instances they are referred to as ‘Tenderprenuers,’ due to their unethical involvement in official government procurement procedures.

But South Asians are resigned to live with this phenomenon, until at least we reach a level where there would be a ministerial code of conduct which would provide a guide for non officials’ behaviour.

Sri Lanka Development Trust

Werritty, it is reported, had a connection to the Sri Lanka Development Trust set up to promote post-conflict reconciliation and development in Sri Lanka. Liam Fox informed Britain’s Parliament that he had worked with people in business, banking and politics in the creation of the Trust. Fox stated categorically that neither he nor Werritty sought to seem any benefit from the Trust.

Lord Bell of Bell Pottinger, a public relations firm which has worked for the Government of Sri Lanka among other governments, has told the London Financial Times that a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Government and the Trust in 2010.

The current address of this Trust is disclosed in Fox’s declaration of Members interests to the House of Commons as No. 50, Lothian Road, Festival Square, Edinburgh. Coincidentally this also houses the offices of Cairn Energy Plc, of which a connected company is drilling for oil and gas in the Mannar Basin.

The information as to who are the Trustees of the Sri Lanka Development Trust and who has signed the Trust documents are not in the public domain. An investigation by London’s Sunday Telegraph has unearthed connections between Werritty and the company called Pargav, which the Telegraph describes as a ‘company funded by secret donors,’ from which Werritty was spending money  on ‘lavish travel and tailoring’.

Pargav

Pargav, the Telegraph, says was set up by Werritty ‘whose donors were promised that their identities would be kept secret’. The Telegraph further says that the use of Pargav’s money to pay for first class travel, expensive entertainment and a visit to a lap dancing bar angered these donors.

A local newspaper investigation has found a Sri Lanka connection to Pargav, a Pargav credit card it is alleged, has been used at the Inn on the Green at the Galle Face Hotel and at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel in December 2010 and June 2011. The newspaper claims that neither Fox nor Werritty were in Colombo on these dates.

The newspaper states that Pargav is a not-for-profit company which received donations which were used to meet Werritty’s expenses. The newspaper reports that the Sri Lanka Development Trust had met the expenses of Fox’s visits to Sri Lanka in November and August 2009.

In an interview with the London Daily Telegraph newspaper, Fox said that it was ‘very pertinent’ for Werritty to attend the Colombo meetings, since he and Werritty had worked closely together on resolving the conflict in Sri Lanka, while the Conservatives were in opposition. Fox insisted that he had simply made ‘a careless mistake’ in meeting with a prospective defence supplier in Dubai with Werritty, in the absence of a British Government official.

M.O. Mathai

Historically, in the annals of South Asian public administration, the activities of such ministerial aides outside the government official cadre go back a long time. One of the earliest which has created waves in post colonial South Asia concerns one M.O. Mathai, who was for years a Special Secretary of India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

His early background is not clear, it is rumoured that he was a clerk working for the US Army in India during World War II. In 1946 he attached himself to Nehru’s entourage and slowly worked himself into the PM’s confidence.

Mathai’s position as ‘Special Secretary’ in the Prime Minister’s Office gave him an insight into the private lives of Nehru, his daughter (future PM of India), her husband Feroze Gandhi. It also gave Mathai a humongous amount of power.

To quote Mathai, “No file or paper reached the PM except through me. Nothing went out except through me… officials used to refer to me as Deputy PM… and the power behind the throne.”

Power corrupted Mathai. As Lord Acton said: “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.” He bragged that “I have been instrumental in the appointment of innumerable ministers, governors and non official ambassadors”.

Mathai reigned supreme at Teen Murti House where Prime Minister Nehru resided and worked. Once even Nehru said that Mathai “is a person who often acted foolishly in small matters, and sometimes threw his weight about”.

In 1959 Nehru removed him from his post as Special Secretary. After others interceded on his behalf, Nehru relented and was willing to take him back. But Mathai was too arrogant – he rejected the offer saying “only a dog returns to his vomit”.

Mathai’s revenge

Mathai laid low for 18 years, until Nehru has passed away and Indira Gandhi was out of power. Then he felt safe enough to spew all his pent up venom and hatred against the family whose loyal acolyte he had held himself out to be.

In his ‘Reminiscences of the Nehru Age’ which was published when the anti Congress Janata Government was in power, he spewed venom against Nehru, Indira and Feroze Gandhi; one chapter was considered too personally vindictive to publish and withheld by the publisher.

When Mathai died, renowned Indian Columnist Khushwant Singh in his column in a daily newspaper wrote: “Mathai is dead. But Mathaism is very much alive. One Mathai goes, another takes his place. Whenever there is a concentration of power, there are people who manage by assiduous flattery and professions of loyalty to get close to it. By sheer physical proximity they acquire power for themselves and confidential information which helps them to perpetuate their hold: they come to know too much and it becomes hazardous to retire or to get rid of them by known rules. Such men are dangerous.”

Singh quotes Noel Coward as an epitaph for Mathai:

‘He was a little man,

That was his trouble.

Never trust a man with short legs;  

His brains are too close to his bottom.’

Not a new phenomenon

So the species and genus of Werrittys and Mathais who hover around persons of power is not a new phenomenon. Indeed it is one that has concerned those in public administration through history.

How do you demarcate the area of authority and influence of professional career public servants, private staff of a minister paid for by the tax payer and other friends, acquaintances, relatives and sundry hangers-on who cohabit closely with the politically powerful?

This question has vexed the good governance advocates for ever and a day. The responses are different from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The Anglo-Saxon system operative in Britain and the USA and countries which follow that style of governance has evolved around a series of values, rules, legislative oversight and close public and media scrutiny.

The Continental model, France, Italy and Spain and those political cultures, seem to have a more relaxed approach to the delimitation of public and private roles of minister’s associates.

In socialist political cultures the lack of transparency means that hardly any information is in the public domain and the lack of independent media is a severe constraint on any sort of outing of conflict of interest situations.

In emerging economies and developing countries, a rules-based culture is yet emerging.  In India, South Africa, Brazil and others Mathaism is alive and well. As the Werritty case shows, even where there are rules, they could be bent, but the salutary thing is that remedial action is taken.

At the end of the day in reality it depends on the values and ethics of the players. If the standards, precepts and practices set by the higher levels of the public service and of the political class, are of such a nature that does not leave room for malpractice, then the system will inhibit any deviation from best practice standard from players who inter act with the administration of government.  But how is this to be ensured and provided for?

Sri Lanka’s ARC

In Sri Lanka the Administrative Reforms Committee (ARC) of 1986 set up by the Government of Sri Lanka to examine and report on reforms required in ministries and departments of government with particular reference to: policies related to cadres, broad principles and guidelines for determination of salaries in the public service, training and management development, decentralisation of the administration, including the structures of the district administration and local government, schemes and procedures for recruitment, promotions and transfers, financial management systems, procedures and practices, administrative work systems and procedures, distribution of subjects and functions among ministries and departments, addressed this issue.

The ARC, popularly known as the Wanasinghe committee, taking its respected chairman’s name, issued a series of reports. The matters being discussed in this Column were primarily dealt with in Report no. 4 ‘The Personnel System’ and Report no. 3 ‘The Senior Management Group’.

1The ARC recommended that the recruitment, dismissal, discipline and transfers of public officers should be separated from the day to day work of ministers individually and of the cabinet of ministers collectively and to vest it is a separate body which could exercise its powers autonomously. The ARC cited several advantages which would accrue by the introduction of such an arrangement:-

1.It would make a significant contribution to restoring the morale of the public service by enhancing the sense of security of the public service as a whole and of its members individually.

2.It would enable the cabinet of ministers to more effectively use its scarce time resources for the tasks of national policy formulation and of monitoring of their implementation and relieve it of the burden of the time consuming processes which must, necessarily, be associated with public personnel functions.

3.It would facilitate the adoption of a more integrated approach on personnel matters of the public service by a body which would devote its total attention to this task and which would be assisted by its own professional secretariat in doing so.

4.It would assist in re-creating an integrated public service free of divisions based on political considerations and individual loyalties.

The ARC recommended a Public Service Commission of a chairman and four members, who should be neither members of parliament or hold any other public office. They should be appointed by the president and hold office for a single term of five years.

In Report 3 on the Senior Management Group (SMG), the ARC recommended that there should be a ‘leader group’ which would provide the public service with qualitative leadership, which would serve as the interface between the public service as a whole and the legislature and political executive, which sets the tone for the whole public service and which acts as the guardian of the value system of the public service.

If it is to be effective in this role the SMG must also enjoy the respect and confidence of the political executive and of the legislature. Such respect and confidence would be a response to the level of objectivity and impartiality as well of the professionalism displayed by the group.

To win such respect and confidence, the SMG must evolve its own professional and ethical standards which, through training and group interaction, would become integral elements in its behaviour.

Leadership implies credibility of the individual members of the SMG-among their peers within the group, in the eyes of the public service as a whole and in the judgment of society.

The ARC expressed the view that it is an often overlooked fact that in a relatively small society such as ours, there is an ongoing evaluatory appraisal of each senior public servant. Each senior appointment is tacitly judged by the society based on such appraisals. Unless its individual members enjoy such credibility, the SMG as a whole would not enjoy the stature necessary for its effectiveness.

As is usual, which such proposals for reform, the ARC report has not been implemented. This is a great pity since it contains a wealth of proposals for reform which help, in the Sri Lanka context, to reduce the tensions between the professional public service and the political policy makers, which would reduce the possibility of Werrittys and Mathais of the future emerging to distort and discredit the system.

(The writer is a lawyer, who has over 30 years experience as a CEO in both government and private sectors. He retired from the office of Secretary, Ministry of Finance and currently is the Managing Director of the Sri Lanka Business Development Centre.)