CB salary hike and era of principled government servants of yesteryear
Don Manu’s incisive exposition (ST-2: March 10, 2024) on the Central Bank authorities “serving themselves” to colossal increments running into millions of rupees inevitably reminds one of the impeccable integrity which prevailed in government service in an earlier era.
I quote from the book “No Cousin, I’ll to Fife” (Colombo, 2000) by that indefatigable and courageous civil servant VL Wirasinha, MBE, CCS, during his tenure as the Commissioner of National Housing at pages 153-156 as follows:
“On 28th October 1954 I reported to Sir Kandiah Vaithianathan (CBE, CCS) at his office in the Ministry of Industries, Housing and Scientific Affairs in the Secretariat building behind the Senate House in the Fort….
“Vaithi and (his Permanent Secretary W.H.) Moore accompanied me round the office, introducing me to the staff. The Deputy was Colin de Silva, a very much younger schoolmate at Richmond, the youngest of three brothers, the eldest of whom was my classmate, Stanley, the second Meril, an Attorney-at-Law. Colin, having left the Public Service not long after I was transferred from the Department of Housing, has become a very successful business magnate in Hawaii, and a best-selling novelist (The Winds of Sinhala: London, Grafton, 1982) with an international reputation. I could not have had a more loyal, efficient, energetic, innovative, honest and honourable Deputy. He suggested very early that the staff officers take an oath or make affirmation that they would not seek to benefit under any of the schemes of assistance for housing operated by the Department. I agreed whole-heartedly, and so did the others. I have always remained most grateful to Colin….
“My wife urged me to secure one of the allotments on Flower Road, pointing out that, with four daughters schooling at Ladies’ College I had a better claim to an allotment than any of the others. This was true, but I pointed out to her that, being in my position of Commissioner, I could not, with propriety, “treat myself ” to an allotment. She disagreed, and requested Vaithi to intervene. He agreed with her up to the point that if I continued to demur, there was nothing he could do! I told him in my wife’s presence that I’d feel a worm if
I had secured an allotment at Flower Road - even if I had not taken the oath that Colin de Silva had seen to it that we signed. It was not until, years later, I had, through the good offices of my friends, Gusty Wirasingha and Reggie Arnolda, secured an allotment at Cambridge Place that my wife was fully reconciled to the situation.”
Such were the honourable and altruistic standards set and strictly adhered to by those illustrious officers of the Ceylon Civil Service.