Restoring dignity in country's public service

BRADMAN Weerakoon, one of Sri Lanka's most eminent public servants passed away this week at the age of 94. He began his career in the Ceylon Civil Service in 1954, serving in various regions across Sri Lanka before taking on the role of Secretary to Prime Minister for the first time under Sir John Kotelawala. Over the years, he went on to serve as Secretary to seven Prime Ministers and also worked with three presidents.

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Weerakoon was of a class of public servants who have all but disappeared from the public's service of this country. He is likely one of the last who held their own before any politics and did their job to the letter according to the law.

State sector jobs are still much sought after in Sri Lanka. It is the same case when Bradman Weerakoon sought to enter the Ceylon Civil Service as it was known then. The crème de la crème that passed out of university vied for coveted positions in the public sector.

Sri Lanka's eminent historian Professor K.M. de Silva in his memoir 'The Making of a Historian' describes the competition to get into the civil service at the end of one's undergraduate education as a 'civil war'. He describes the struggle for an entry to a place in the civil service, once the elite position of influence if not power in the administration, which later become subordinate to the political masters.