Sugath Kulatunga

The Constitution of the country provides for the appointment of a Secretary for each Ministry,who is empowered to exercise supervision over the departments of Government or other institutions in the charge of his Minister.vide the following Articles of the Constitution.

52. (1) There shall be for each Ministry a Secretary who shall be appointed by the President.

(2) The Secretary to the Ministry shall, subject to the direction and control of his Minister, exercise supervision over the departments of Government or other institutions in the charge of his Minister.

In most cases Ministry Secretaries are the most senior members of the SLAS. Normally they have had over 25 years of service in different fields and have undergone post graduate training abroad. They are the crème de la crème of the public service.

With persons of such caliber in charge of the administration of Ministries it is difficult to explain the numerous misdemeanors exposed in the postmortem exercises of the Parliamentary Committees of COPA and COPE. Each ministry would have an internal auditor directly responsible to the Secretary who would be reporting to the Secretary any planned and ongoing transgressions.

It is suggested that the Internal Auditor works closely with the external auditor and bring to the notice of the Secretary of the Ministry any wrongdoing. To make the two auditors work in harmony the internal auditor could be an officer seconded from the Audit Department. With such a system in place both the Secretary and the internal auditor should be made accountable for any wrongdoing in the Ministry.

These high-powered officials should not be allowed to be like the 3 wise monkeys. After all they are paid more than peanuts.

Sugath Kulatunga