The appointments – a clever test of competence

Any leader especially the PM knows what a pain this giving appointments to a whole set of people is. It is all very well to reward his friends who have been loyal to him since time immemorial and that is how it is played all over the world no matter what anyone tries to use the Good Governance moniker to criticize.

Then there are all the others that are made out of duty, for services rendered, loyalty, and suffering for years out of refusal to play ball with the past regime. So a whole host of people have been given positions, and it is the Chairmanships that are currently under the microscope of the do gooders who have for a moment lost a sense of proportion on what we just had less than a month ago, under the Rajapakse regime.

For the first time there is the 100 day workload, and these appointments will be looked at by the PM for their performance, and competence in this period. Just as the old guard of Ministers will be retired, the appointments will also be looked at for competence. All those found wanting will at most have to be replaced within 6 months, and that is time enough to test their competence. Whilst they may not know it, that is the reality of their positions, and a report card on their performance will determine if they get the extension after the election, and it is easy to use the new Govt. as the reason for their ouster to save face with the public and their drinking buddies who will otherwise mercilessly maul them out of the club!

Just as people will determine who will deserve re-election to parliament, and hopefully, we will have one sans the crooks of all sorts, the newly elected leaders will determine the competence of the existing appointees, and make legitimate changes, with hopefully younger blood, the next time around, so we will see new ideas and new concepts creep into Govt. and running the country.

Another example is Tilak Karunaratne at the SEC. While he is OK, he is out of touch with the latest developments on how capital markets operate. In 100 days he will realize how out of depth he is now on knowledge and will gracefully retire from his position, saying age before beauty and leave no hard feelings one way or the other.

It is now over to a crafty media campaign in the state press to convince the voters that RW and his team are the ones who can make an effective change for the better, by completely denigrating the betal leaf and hand, and convincing the voters that it was the elephant all along that saved the nation from a worse fate, therefore give them the leadership in the new coalition to carry out the remainder of the clean up of policies, practices and politics to plant a new culture of leadership and honesty!