Thursday Dec 12, 2024
Thursday Dec 12, 2024
Thursday, 26 September 2019 00:48 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Sunil Perera in his Baila song ‘Deng Sepa Da?’ (‘Are You Happy Now?’) eloquently articulates that all politicians are the same and are actually friends who protect each other while they continuing to rob the country as they have done for the past 71 years. One only needs to look at which prominent politicians are behind bars and how many billions of dollars of their ill-gotten gains have been returned to the Treasury to confirm that Sunil Perera is totally correct.
The October 2018 Constitutional coup and the Easter Sunday 2019 attack have further alienated the Citizens from all politicians, so the time is ripe for a Third Party Alliance (TPA) to get a landslide victory at the Presidential and General Elections with a unique selling proposition (USP) that involves no politicians. The TPA President and MPs are merely coming to power to effect that change, shut down Parliament and then resign.
Citizens debate the benefits and shortcomings of the presidential model, the parliamentary model and mixed models ad nauseum, while totally ignoring the model that runs the global economy, the company model.
No, not the typical “profit and share price above all” company model which ruins the environment and has a short-term mindset and is the hallmark of capitalist greed, but, a sustainable, highly transparent, “company-like” model that has the primary goals of:
in response to the Strategic Direction set by the citizens of the country. The Strategic Direction is based on the analysis of a variety of local and global factors, and is always guided by the Constitution. The New Constitution will have very strong fundamental rights to ensure that the individual is protected from the tyranny of the State and/or the tyranny of the majority.
A company-like governance system
To make the citizens’ Strategic Direction a reality there will be 3 major “business” units in a Company-like Governance System (CGS). They will be Services Delivery, New Services Planning & Development, and Laws, Rules and Regulations. Each of these three units will define the necessary policies, programs and projects in support of the Strategic Direction (see figure below). 
The CGS and the Constitution will be ISO 9001 certified and operate totally transparently other than for personal information on citizens and national security matters. All CGS offices, conference rooms, etc. are on webcams, and the citizens are welcome to observe their government in operation.
1. The most frequent interaction of citizens will be with the Services Delivery (SD) Unit of the government. These are the lifetime services that are delivered to a citizen, and they include education, health, tax payments, social welfare, legal rights protection, fines for traffic violations, and various types of authorisations such as NIC, passport, driver’s license etc. Many of the services will be delivered on-line. Since all citizens are not computer literate or have computer access, the SD Unit will have satellite offices around the country for easy citizen access, or even “on the spot” services where the government comes to the citizen.
The citizens can call a problem complaints hotline for fast resolution of any issues. The status of the complaint can be tracked on-line or via SMS updates.
Physical services delivery (police, ambulance, garbage collection, building permits etc.) will be local, with SD Unit personnel in local centres whose domain boundary will be based on a Level of Service for that specific service. Wherever practical, the SD Unit will provide “on the spot” services. The domain boundaries will change periodically based on changing population and other factors in the area to ensure that the relevant level of service is met.
2. The second most frequent interaction of the citizens will be with the New Services Planning and Development (NSPD) Unit of the government. Citizens are actively invited to propose ways of improving the current services delivery, or to propose new services altogether to even better realise the Strategic Direction. Proposals can be at the national level or the local level. The NSPD Unit will work closely with the citizen to flesh out the proposal to understand its qualitative and quantitative benefits in a structured way.
If the outcome is favourable, the proposal will be submitted for consideration via the annual budget process along with the simulation or pilot test results. If the proposal is urgent in nature, it can potentially be funded out of Sector contingency funds for the same year. The proposing citizen and the NSPD Service Officer will be recognised for their contribution to making the nation a better place. The proposal can be tracked through the process in a transparent way, on-line, by any interested citizen.
This approach will obviate the need for various layers of representatives that exist at the local and national government levels, and get the citizen’s voice directly heard by a very responsive government. It should be noted that the various layers in the current system pay little heed to citizen requests unless there is some direct personal benefit to be realised or the citizen belongs to a group favoured by one representing them.
3. Citizens don’t directly deal with the third, and final, Laws, Rules and Regulations (LRR) Unit. The services improvement or new services proposals submitted to the NSPD by citizens, may require changes to existing laws, rules and regulations, or new ones. NSPD will interact with the LRR Unit to propose changes to existing laws, rules and regulations or the formulation of new laws, rules and regulations.
The LRR will review the requests and determine if they are consistent with the Constitution and the existing laws, rules and regulations. Consistency checking is done via a computer based system since all laws, rules and regulation will be written in computer sensible format to ensure that they can even be read and understood by ordinary citizens.
The current approach of legalese jargon with no consistency checking, and deliberate loopholes were the root causes behind the chaos that happened in Sri Lanka for 51 days in October 2018. In some instances, the LRR Unit will interact with the Supreme Court to obtain clarification on Constitutional matters as needed.
Making the CGS real
Any TPA that adopts the CGS as their governance model has a unique selling proposition that will allow them to sweep the Presidential and General Elections because of the uniform disgust amongst sensible citizens about politicians.
Party loyalists who vote unfailingly for a given party are not in the 1% of fat cats at the top of the economic ladder, but belong to those who are deliberately kept in poverty or economic stress so that they can be exploited as voter banks during elections with the usual false promises. These include the six million in agriculture, the three million who are dependent on the one million tuk or cab driving family member for their sustenance, and the 1.6 million public and local government servants who work in low paid jobs with no job satisfaction and have to lead a life of bribe taking to make ends meet.
The CGS is appealing to all of these segments and the sensible citizens, and the TPA can easily make the case since people immediately understand the concept of a “company model”. Sri Lanka with a CGS will be better than Singapore which is still saddled with an authoritarian political party that suppresses the other political parties in a variety of ways.
After writing the draft CGS Implementation Bill and the new Constitution to enable it, the TPA will actively seek feedback from the public and revise as necessary. Following the finalisation of the aforementioned items, the TPA will seek 262 candidates from the 160 polling districts who can be articulate champions for the CGS in their areas. The TPA candidates will sign an MOU about their role as change agents for CGS and their role as the caretaker during the transition period. The founding members of TPA will not contest the elections, but function in the role of architects that makes the CGS change happen.
The TPA will conduct a quick crowd funded, highly visual campaign that communicates the enormous benefit of not having politicians and an ineffective bureaucracy, and how CGS will be implemented along with the new Constitution in 18 months. The campaign will highlight that the TPA candidates are only coming to change the system by getting a two-thirds majority in Parliament so that they can submit the CGS Implementation Bill and new Constitution on the day that they are sworn in. They will act as a caretaker government during the 18-month transition period, and will be advised by the competents that will be hired into the SD, NSPD, and LRR Units. Parliament will be shut down in 18 months and the MPs will resign after having effected the change, and the New Republic dawns.
Since many MPs make promises and change their mind once they get into power, the TPA will obtain signed, but undated, letters of resignation from the MPs and all their candidates. Finally, the CGS Implementation Bill and the Constitution will have clauses to prevent Parliament from passing any legislation to hinder their passage and implementation.
Finding the best to serve us
In order to make the Strategic Direction a reality, a company has many business units and departments with, hundreds, if not thousands, of staff that deliver the services or products to their customers. Similarly, the government to deliver the above services will have potentially about 20 sectors and perhaps 10 departments on average under them for a total of about 200 departments.
Job Descriptions (JD) for the staff positions in this integrated services framework (ISF) are defined along with the desired candidate qualifications. The jobs are advertised widely to seek, screen, and lottery select the best candidate for the job from a short list. The new appointee is given goals to meet, and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) by which their performance is judged by their managers and the Screening Committees that interviewed them. If they perform well, they are rewarded with bonuses, and if they fail to perform, they are reprimanded, or fired. When we adopt a CGS, we can be served by the best, who will also be handsomely compensated for their services.
Since its impractical and not sensible for the entire voting population to interview the candidates that will apply for the advertised jobs, we can appoint Screening Committees (SC), of about 10-15 members to do the job on our behalf in a very transparent manner. Please note that the SCs only transparently screen the candidate into a short list, and the appointee is lottery selected from the short list.
The SCs would comprise fellow citizens (with no criminal record) who have hired, managed and fired people in their careers, and have knowledge in the domain that they are screening candidates for. The SC members don’t need to have a university degree, but at least five years of experience in hiring/managing/firing people. They also need to have domain knowledge in the Sector or Department that they are screening candidates for. Their work experience can be in a micro enterprise like a kadey, to a medium sized NGO, or to a large company.
The SC members will be required to declare their assets at the time of their appointment, and provide periodic updates to minimise bribe taking for favouring candidates, etc. If it is suspected that the SC member’s family or associates are receiving bribes on their behalf, the Police will conduct investigations into those persons after being authorised by a judge on the basis of reasonable suspicion like conspicuous spending.
The entire screening process will be fully transparent and viewable by the public on line. The SC members and the applicant are required to identify any potential conflicts of interest to minimise bias in the screening process. For example, if the father is on a SC, and the son submits a job application, then the father should recuse himself from assessing the son’s application. If the applicant or a SC member hides a relationship that can create a conflict of interest, and the relationship is discovered after the job appointment has been done, then the guilty parties will be appropriately disciplined. The punishment can include firing of the appointee, and severe penalties (including rigorous imprisonment) for the SC member and the appointee for violating the public’s trust.
The above process to find the SC members would be kick-started by the TPA founder members in a transparent process as described above.
Given that this transparent process will get us the best appointee for a job, and any non-performing post holder can be fired very quickly, pause and think how enormously better it would be compared to the current set of incompetents ruling us when they are supposed to be serving us. Will the new process be perfect? Of course not, but we can fix it very quickly in a transparent way compared to the current situation.
The other parts of the CGS
President: The CGS will have a ceremonial president. The President Screening Committee will define the JD and desired qualifications, call for nominations from the public, and go through the same transparent screening and lottery selection process. The president will have a single three-year term.
The Judiciary: The Judiciary is a service with departments in the SD, NSPD and LRR Units, other than the role of the Supreme Court in its Constitution interpretation function. The Judiciary also has Screening Committees, and go through the same transparent screening and lottery selection process. Given that all laws, rules and regulations will be developed in computer sensible format with consistency and completeness checking algorithms all the way down from the Constitution, the Supreme Court’s Constitution interpretation work should be minimal, and ideally zero.
The Decision Council: The 20 Sector heads from each of the SD, NSPD, and LRR Units—a total of 60—along with the President, and Chief Justice, form the Decision Council. The duties of the Decision Council include passing the annual budget, declaring states of emergency and declaring war. The President and the Chief Justice don’t have any votes, and the President is the ceremonial head of the Decision Council. In case of a tie in the Decision Council, amendments to the proposal should be the first choice, and a revote. If that still results in a tie, then a spot referendum will be conducted in short order (with time for debate, discussion and revision) with the public being informed in an objective way about the pros and cons of the referendum. Voting will be electronic and mandatory for all citizens. Some referendums will only require a simple majority, while others will require a two-thirds majority.
Certain urgent matters such as declaring a state of emergency or war should ideally be decided by the Decision Council rather than via a public referendum.
The shareholders: The citizens are the shareholders of the CGS and all have to electronically vote on setting the Strategic Direction, and on any amendments to the Constitution. As stated before, the shareholder citizens are also involved in shaping their government via their complaints to the SD and their proposals to the NSPD. A true government of the people, by the people, for the people!
What a difference your vote can make: What a welcome change CGS would be compared to the current system where we are presented a set of incompetents/murderers/thieves/thugs/etc. by the political parties to vote for at the Presidential, General and Local Government Elections?
The politicians fail consistently—with a few exceptions in a few situations—and the only way to get rid of them is at the next election which is usually five years away for the president and MPs. The public service, that mostly “hard(ly) working,” and “come on bended knee if you want any service from us” cadre of 1.6 million (with an annual cost running into billions), can’t even be gotten rid of via an election. They are there “for life” until retirement, except in the case of gross malfeasance when they may be prosecuted, if a politician does not interfere. In retirement, they continue to be a drain on the public coffers via pension payments which now amount to billions of rupees per year. To summarise, we currently are very expensively ruled, and poorly served by the worst.
Vote for the TPA and CGS at the next Presidential and General Elections, and we can collectively hit the “eset” button on all politics, and make Sri Lanka the pioneer in taking our country back from the incompetent, uncaring, corrupt, and murdering politicians.
With them gone, after 71 years we will finally have the opportunity to collectively make this country a great place for all of us, and generations to come!
(Tilak Dissanayake and Hilmy Sally are design engineers who have synthesised the CGS from a compilation of decades of complaints, problems, and proposed solutions from fellow citizens. It is a work in process, and they welcome comments, unvarnished critique, and revisions. They can be reached at [email protected] or [email protected])
