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Cars and puduma sathas

It wasn't very long ago that we ran a story that public servants were cheesed off that the promised concessionary duty vehicles for them were not forthcoming. President D. B. Wijetunge's administration suspended the scheme about a month before the 1994 general elections and nobody would have quarrelled with Prof. G. L. Peiris' budget assessment last November that its reintroduction will be "enthusiastically" welcomed by the beneficiaries.

With provincial elections round the corner, it would not have surprised anybody that a Treasury circular was soon out announcing the glad tidings that public officers could once more import motor vehicles on concessionary terms. As we reported on March 14, there was a predictable political input in the circular: favoured species like private secretaries, public relations officers and co-ordinating secretaries to ministers, deputy minister and the speaker were exempt from the minimum service period required to qualify for the concession.

We don't want to be killjoys and urge that relatively poorly paid public servants be deprived of a perquisite bestowed on them by both this government and its predecessor. But we do think that political appointees like private secretaries of ministers etc. should not be specially favoured merely because they are particularly close to those who sit on the thrones of elective office. That is one matter. But there is also another much broader question that deserves serious attention.

Wijesoma fans might remember a cartoon he drew at a time that Sri Lanka was hosting one of those international extravaganzas.There was a long line of luxury vehicles drawing up at an opulent porch and a third world guest was remarking to his colleague: "And to think that they are a poor developing nation." That is the crux of the problem. Those who live on the public purse, be they members of this government or that, have a penchant for champagne lifestyles while the vast majority of the people have to struggle to merely exist.

Our public institutions are very well serviced with vehicles and drivers. Strangely, despite our producing the world's first woman prime minister and having her daughter as the country's third executive president, we still don't employ women drivers in government and private offices. The Sri Lanka Air Force has had second thoughts about the women pilots it started selecting, it is true. But we have a woman now on the supreme court, one in the appeal court and our first female vice-chancellor. Yet, alas, no women drivers, perhaps because of the male wolves who'll ride those cars! They might even move from the back of the car to the front passenger seat if we have female chauffeurs.

But we digress. The thrust of this comment is that given the nation's means, we are far too liberal with official vehicles. This realization did dawn on the powers that be when the concessionary duty scheme was first conceived. It was then decided that those who benefited from the facility to import a vehicle on duty free or concessional duty terms, should use that vehicle for official running. But what happened? Those on whom the gods smiled had their bread buttered on both sides! They got the right to buy a duty free or concessional duty car and had their official vehicles as well to swank around in.

The bureaucrats were not the only culprits. The politicians too got the duty free/low duty perk plus the official vehicle. Although the Sri Lankan memory is notoriously short, let us not forget the rackets this vehicle purchase facility spawned. Permits were freely flogged in the marketplace and huge profits made on the facility by both government servants and their political masters. Remember President Premadasa fuelling the bid to impeach him by setting the bloodhounds after those who had abused their vehicle import permits?

It does certainly make sense to allow those who must do official travelling to import vehicles on special terms and use such vehicles for both their official and private purposes. If the car is their own, they will surely look after it and government would be spared immense expense on repairs and maintenance. We will also not need the army of drivers that are currently employed at public expense and, hopefully, people who matter might even try to use public transport. That is the best way of ensuring at least some improvement of abysmally bad services.

Officials using their own cars for official work can be paid mileage as was done in the early post-Independence years and during colonial times. Then public servants and ministers used their own cars not only to commute between their homes and offices but also for going on circuit. Very few departmental heads, if any, had official cars and many junior officers found paying off their car loans quite easy on the mileage they were paid for using their own vehicles for official running.

So concessional duty facilities for those who need vehicles for their work is a fair perquisite if they use such vehicles for official duties. Right now we hear sounds emanating from the Elections Monitoring Committee that state facilities must not be used for campaigning. Which politician holding office goes for election meetings in his own vehicle? We would venture to guess none at all. If there is anyone, he would surely be a puduma satha, or strange animal as the Sinhala language so pithily has it.

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