Not replying letters: A malady of our state institutions
I have a dream that every single official letter written would be acted upon.
I have this dream that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will make it a law that every single government office is compelled to acknowledge all letters received, followed by appropriate action.
Replying letters entails taking responsibility, devoting time and energy and taking action or delegating the task to a specific responsible other. Not one of these people work on voluntary basis hence they have an obligation to work effectively.
The following reasons can be attributed for this serious flaw in our society: Inherent reluctance to commit in writing (this is criminal)
Avoiding responsibility
Lack of language skills
Lethargy
Excuses: No assistant, no typist, no typewriter, no computer, no funds to buy paper
Red tape / office politics etc
The writer can cite examples where state institutions have not replied registered letters.
1) Four years ago a leading state bank was written to with regard to a bank draft bought from them. Five different so-called General Managers in the Head Office were named separately and written to under registered covers. To this day there is no reply. A sixth General Manager who was not written to finally helped resolve the matter. It was the telephone operator’s kind intervention that got him involved.
2) The BIMSAVIYA office has not replied letters or attended to a controversy in my land demarcation, for over five years.
3) The Consumer Affairs Authority instead of attending to a complaint letter just forwards it to the culprit trader and notifies me of it.
4) A COVID-19 precautionary alert letter to the Health Ministry is not replied. That is mind boggling.
5) National Water Supply and Drainage Board did not reply but acted after months of pestering.
The futility of writing letters to institutions is well known to Sri Lankans thus they go in person. This mostly results in being treated shabbily because one has to toe the line and show respect to a ‘state service employee’ as the claim goes. Preventing citizens from seeing the boss is their one objective. Why not give an appointment when he/she is free?
Correspondence in English is not banned in Sri Lanka. Every office can have a competent translator to read and reply letters written in English or Tamil for that matter.
Sri Lanka’s pride of having a highly literate population is somewhat dented since written communication is all to do with writing intelligently. Most of the Ministry websites are mere status symbols. They don’t interact with citizens when the ‘contact us’ option is chosen. Employment could be given to those who can update them.
I appeal to the President to change this culture of indifference.