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Muzzling the public service

The cabinet last week waved a big stick at the public service by threatening ``stern disciplinary action’’ against government servants who violate the Establishment Code on official information. The cabinet decision itself and the way it was played up by the state media naturally created a great deal of uncertainty in the minds of public servants on whether they were entitled to speak at all to the media on matters of public interest. The result is predictable. Many public servants will take the easy way out by ducking press questions with a ``sorry, we are not allowed to talk to the press.’’

This has already happened. At a news conference summoned by Fisheries Minister Mahinda Rajapakse last week, the minister made a passing remark about the Customs creating problems for lobster exporters. The Daily Mirror had tried to get a response to this from the acting Customs chief, but its reporter had been fobbed off by this official citing the cabinet decision loudly trumpeted by the state media. These examples, no doubt, will multiply in the coming weeks. Mr. Rajapakse himself seemed puzzled about the official gag and suggested that there had been some misinterpretation. Time will tell whether he is right.

Our legal affairs correspondent has in an article in this page pointed out that the government news release on the subject of disclosure of official information has only selectively quoted the Establishment Code. The writer points out that the section of the code that the cabinet has relied on applies only to those officials who do not enjoy political rights. As defined in the Establishment Code itself, those public officials who do not have political rights are members of the judiciary, members of the armed services and police, others like gramasevakas designated as ``peace officers’’, staff officers and supervisory officers in the public service and those working for the Elections Department.

While nobody will quarrel with government officials maintaining secrecy on matters affecting national security and public order, there are very many matters that legitimately belong to the public domain. Government officials by and large know very well what they should talk about to the press and what they should not and they broadly operate within these parameters. The people, after all, who pay the taxes that support the bureaucratic and political Establishments have every right to know whether their money is properly spent. The media has a duty by the people it seeks to inform to find out matters that interest the public and they have over the years interacted with the public service in the right spirit. The politicians get het up when matters that embarrass them are unearthed by the media and conveyed to the people. That’s when Establishment Code provisions are resurrected and ``stern action’’ threatened.

This is not the only government that has issued news releases, circulars and other directives defining who is entitled to talk to the press and who is not. Despite all these orders, the press has been able to function reasonably adequately all these years as the prohibitions tend to be forgotten with the passage of time. Let us hope that this will be the case this time round as well and public servants will not timidly take cover behind archaic Establishment Code provisions and directives such as those made last week. In fact, a total reading of all provisions of the code relating to this matter should convince public servants that the position is not as bad as some of the headlines would suggest.

As Nayana points out in the Legal Watch column on this page, the very same chapter in the Establishment Code setting out the political rights of government officials, also strictly forbids the use of government property for political purposes and says that no political meetings should be held in any government building or workplace. Can any member of the cabinet who subscribed to last week’s decision on the strict enforcement of the Establishment Code with regard to the disclosure of ``official information’’ truthfully affirm that they have not participated in the use of pubic property and facilities for political purposes violating the provisions of the self-same code on which they selectively rely?

The public are only too aware of the blatant abuse of public property for political purposes. Ministers and other politicians entitled to official transport as a matter of course use their luxury vehicles to ride to political meetings and rallies despite the fact that they have availed themselves of duty free or concessionary duty facilities to purchase private vehicles. Apart from that, they unashamedly utilise facilities and officials of ministries and departments under their purview for political work. It must be said in fairness that not only members of this government have been guilty of these violations of proper conduct. Members of predecessor government have been as guilty. The situation has grown worse with the passage of time with growing public expenditures encouraging politicians of all hues to make no distinction between their official and political functions.

We do not know what triggered the resurrection of Establishment Code provisions on official information at this late stage of the government’s incumbency. The chances are that politicians have been getting embarrassed by publication of news reports from their ministries and departments that do not reflect well on themselves. It is just too bad for them if that is the case. Their best protection against such ``leaks’’ (as they see them) would be proper and righteous conduct.

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