1 week Ago By Thilina Walpola
I was Chairman of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation and Director-General of Broadcasting only for a period of a little over four months, before I was reassigned. Therefore, a lengthy account of my stewardship in this post would not be necessary. I would however, like to briefly touch upon some salient issues.
Firstly, on the management side, I found the organization to lack sufficient vigour. There had developed a looseness dangerously bordering on the careless. For instance, a Sinhala news reader, who had to do the 6.
30 a.m. news bulletin came late by about ten minutes, delaying the station’s opening, in spite of the fact that a car was sent to her residence to pick her up.
She had to be sent on compulsory leave pending an inquiry. A large number of employees had got into the habit of aimlessly walking the corridors. That had to be stopped.
There were employees playing carom in the canteen, during office hours. The carom boards had to be taken into custody and released only during the lunch hour and after 5 p.m.
Stern action was promised against anyone smelling of liquor. ‘The Directors of the divisions were enjoined to have a regular monthly meeting with their staff and the minutes of the meetings sent up to me. I met the Directors once a fortnight.
I met the Trade Unions representing all parties and groups regularly. Through these meetings we were able to identify a long checklist of items that needed to be worked on and followed up. The list was then prioritized and specific time periods set for completion of action.
In some instances we later found, that implementation was on schedule, but the quality of the implementation poor. Quality checks were then installed. For some reason, the annual administration report of the Corporation had not been published for a number of years.
Therefore, the reports and accounts had not been laid before Parliament. The rectification of this situation was begun. All in all, the entire administration and management of the institution had to be toned up and a degree of rigour injected into the system.
This process was set in motion. On the programme and quality side too, a great deal of collaborative effort had to be put in. Here, unfortunately, we did not have a free hand.
Politics came into contention. During the period of the previous government some radio artistes, especially singers had been sidelined allegedly on political grounds, Now with a five-sixths majority in Parliament the rulers wanted to make up for lost time, and virtually demanded five-sixths of programs. The genre of many of them was Sinhala pop, and although I resisted consistently and continuously creating a serious imbalance in the Sinhala music programs, this happened.
This initial surge could not be stopped, although towards my last month in office things were coming more into balance. Amongst the varied programme activities, I was particularly interested in a program initiated by Mr. C.
de S. Kulatillake on regional customs, dialects, and language peculiarities, including the Veddah language. We did not have television at this time and there was the danger, that with increased urbanization and migration, some of these linguistic and cultural aspects would be lost forever.
I therefore, heavily backed Mr. Kulatilleke’s research and recordings and found ways and means of finding extra funds to sustain his program. Practical Problems In an era of non-existent T.
V., radio in Sri Lanka had a powerful countrwide reach. Therefore, it naturally attracted the attention of politicians.
This was not a healthy situation. Each one vied for more airtime. Each one kept tabs on the news bulletins and was disappointed and angry that their rivals and competitors appeared to get greater exposure.
They all felt they were doing great things, but the SLBC only gave publicity to their rivals. This was a serious problem. It tended to disturb the balance of programming and the fair presentation of news.
On the other hand, it was also personally galling. Politicians, including Ministers, telephoned me with a degree of irritation and anger. Some of them accused my staff of partisanship and insisted on giving details of producer X’s close connections with Minister Y, leading to Minister Y getting undue and disproportionate publicity.
Others, mercifully just a very few, accused me of trying to bring the government into disrepute. Apparently, according to this thinking the reputation of the government would depend to a large extent on maximizing the sound of their voices on radio. To add to those woes was Mr.
Premadasa, Minister of Local Government Housing and Construction and No. 2 in the UNP. He was obsessed with publicity to the point where all of us including the JSS felt that it was counter productive.
He was happiest when arrangements were made for the country to hear his voice in abundance. None of us had a choice in this matter. But I got the flak, including some abusive phone calls, inquiring whether I was stooging Mr.
Premadasa! Such are the difficulties of public servants who find themselves in the middle of political dog-fights. To restore a degree of balance and equilibrium was exceedingly difficult, and it is to the credit of many in the Corporation, that as professional broadcasters, they resisted as far as possible irrespective of their party affiliations. Such resistance had my full encouragement and backing.
The Corporation was not the United National Party Broadcasting Corporation or the Sri Lanka Freedom Party Broadcasting Corporation. It was the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation set up by Parliamentary Statute. Therefore, as best as possible, Sri Lanka had to be served.
As Chairman of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, I was also Ex-officio a member of the Board of Directors of the State Film Corporation. This was for me, a fascinating field and during my brief tenure there, I tried to bring whatever skills and experience I had, to the better management of the Corporation, as well as encouraging the beginning of a serious dialogue and reflection on policy. The Artistic Temperament Besides politics, the other central issue in the internal dynamics of the Corporation was the one of managing the artistic temperament.
Artistes were sensitive people. Some of them were very talented. The problem was that the combination of these two qualities also made them very opinionated and often temperamental.
Disputes among them were many. Some of them belonged to different schools of music, and had strong views about those of other schools. Some of them thought that they were trained in better musical academies than others.
Some thought they had more modern views, which had to be given greater respect and weight. Underlying these varied views was also the pervasive pressure of commercial competition. An Artiste’s standing in the Corporation was convertible to cash by way of a larger number of invitations to private shows, prospective work with recording companies, and other benefits.
Given all these circumstances, an important preoccupation was the settling of squabbles among them, squabbles which threatened the smooth programming that was necessary in order to sustain a large variety of music programs, nvolving substantial broadcast time. I was to encounter later, similar problems with artists and artistes when I became Secretary to the Ministry of Education and Higher Education. Within a day or two of our arrival in Sri Lanka (from a conference in Belgrade), I received a telephone call from Mr.
S.B. Herat, Minister of Food and Cooperatives.
He asked me to come and see him. I had neither known nor met Mr. Herat before.
But I knew him by sight. When I saw him at his Campbell Place residence, where he stayed with his brother, after asking a few questions, he invited me to become the Secretary to his Ministry. Mr.
K.B. Dissanayke of whom I had written about in a previous chapter, was retiring from service.
I inquired from Mr. Herat as to whether my present minister Mr. D.
B. Wijetunge was aware that he was going to make this offer to me. He said “No”, but he would be speaking to him.
I told him I was sorry, but if my present minister had not been informed, it was not possible for me to continue with this conversation. This was the tradition we were brought up in. One did not discuss a matter like this behind the back of one’s minister.
In fact, I remember the instance in the 1960’s when Mr. D.G.
Dayaratne, a senior civil servant who was then functioning as the Port Commissioner when called by the Prime Minister Mrs. Bandaranaike and offered the post of Secretary to the Cabinet declined to discuss the issue, because she had not informed his Minister Mr. Michael Siriwardena.
Mr. Dayaratne was later appointed, after the formalities had been concluded. In my case, Mr.
Herat was apologetic and said he would not discuss the matter further, but only wished to know whether I would serve if there was general agreement. I said, “Yes” and that this was based on a principle I followed, of taking up whatever assignment the government of the day wished me to undertake. Mr.
Herat appreciated this, and we parted. As I was leaving he said “Please don’t mention this conversation to anybody. I will be clearing matters with your minister and the Prime Minister.
” (Mr. Jayewardene was not President yet.) I promised not to.
Matters rested at this for two days. On the morning of the third day which was a holiday, where I had decided to go to the (radio) station later than usual, the telephone at home rang at about 9.30 a.
m. The Minister of Lands and Irrigation Mr. Gamini Dissanayake was on the line.
He said “Dharmasiri, what are you wasting your time at SLBC for? We are forming a new Ministry of Mahaweli Development. Join me and become its secretary.” I was now in a serious quandary.
I couldn’t tell him that the Food Minister had already spoken to me. I had promised to keep that conversation secret. I therefore rather lamely told Mr.
Dissanayake that I knew nothing about irrigation systems or river diversions, and that it was best for him to look for someone with some experience in that area. I suggested Mr. Sivaganam, who was his Secretary in the Ministry of Lands.
But Mr. Dissanayake was not to be so easily diverted. He merely said, “No, you will pick it up in three months.
It’s going to be an enormous challenge and a great creative endeavour. Please come. I will speak to the prime minister.
” I reminded him that he should speak to my minister first. He promised to do so. To my relief, he did not request me to keep this conversation confidential.
I therefore, rang Mr. Herat and was fortunate to find him at home. I requested an immediate appointment.
I said that the matter was urgent. He asked me to come. When I told him what happened, he was visibly upset.
He thought that Mr. Dissanayake knew that he was interested in getting me. I told Mr.
Herat that the last thing I wanted was to be in the middle of a tug of war between two ministers and to please understand that the present situation was none of my seeking. He was very understanding. He agreed that I should not be misunderstood by anyone.
Mr. Herat told me later that the matter was finally resolved in Cabinet. Both Ministers had argued for me.
What had finally clinched the issue had been my previous experience as deputy food commissioner. The government was about to launch a major food policy reform, and they finally concluded that my presence in the food ministry was more important at the time. Thus it was, that one afternoon, when I had just finished seeing off the French Cultural Attache (at SLBC), who had come to present some recordings of French music, an envelope bearing the seal of President’s House was hand delivered to me.
It contained a letter from the Secretary to the President intimating to me that the President was pleased to appoint me as Secretary to the Ministry of Food and Co-operatives “with immediate effect.” One could not however, abandon responsibilities involved in the only national broadcasting facility “with immediate effect.” What I did “with immediate effect” was to call a series of emergency meetings with all the relevant parties including Heads of Divisions, Trade Unions, and other important persons.
The news of my imminent departure spread rapidly, and large numbers of employees sought to see me to express their shock and regret. Inbetween meetings, I had to find the time to speak to them, however briefly. I had enjoyed good relations with everyone and I felt somewhat sad at the prospect of this sudden departure.
I had to dissuade employees and trade unions going in delegation to see the Minister to protest at my going. Amongst the unions, one of the most affected seemed to be the JSS, the same union that protested at my appointment. Now they wanted to protest at my departure.
This too, I successfully stopped. The SLFP Union was extremely unhappy. They had felt secure because of my presence.
Now they felt quite insecure. They did not know what type of person would succeed me. My Directors of Divisions were very upset.
One of the problems was that to everyone this was a sudden blow. They did not possess my knowledge of the background to all this and I was of course sworn to secrecy. My meetings went on till near midnight.
I myself had not anticipated that my new appointment would come so fast. Therefore, there was much to discuss and decide on, particularly fairly urgent and important matters that would come up during the following few weeks. Then there were important matters to be pursued, both of a bilateral and international nature, consequent to the Non-Aligned Broadcasting conference.
I had virtually just come back from that meeting. Responsibilities for follow up action had to be allocated. It turned out to be an exhausting day, and finally when I left the station for the last time another day had dawned.
(Excerpted from In Pursuit of Governance, autobiography of MDD Peiris).
