Bureaucratic bungling creates problems for foreign journalists

Before he opted for a career in diplomacy, Foreign Secretary Ravinatha Aryasinha was a media man. So, he knew that like promoting foreign policy objectives of his country, projecting the real image in a crisis situation is as important.

This is why, after the April 21 Easter Sunday carnage, he urged Customs Director General P.S.M. Charles to allow camera crews from reputed international television channels into Sri Lanka together with their equipment. This is without a Carney or a Bank guarantee required by Customs to ensure the equipment is not sold locally, though it had not happened so far.

As Foreign Secretary Aryasinha envisaged, the presence of the television teams helped the world to see the

barbarous IS carnage and how badly little Sri Lanka’s economy was hit by its dastardly acts. This, in no small measure, helped people outside and even locals understand the evils of IS terrorism by extremist Muslim groups.

Now it was time for those television teams to leave. A leading agency’s top engineer, who helped link live satellite coverage, packed his tools and equipment in nearly ten packages. Many hours ahead of his departure, he drove to the airport. Outside the building, every single item in his packages was checked, an inevitable and important requirement these days. When it was over, the flight he was to board had taken off.

The man returned to the hotel where he stayed. Since he had to travel to another trouble spot and not knowing local procedures, he urged a leading company to send his tools and equipment as air cargo. Alas, a Sri Lankan Customs bureaucrat, in the absence of Ms Charles, placed his own conditions. One was a licence from the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) and the other was payment of a hefty Customs duty.

Presidential Secretary Udaya Seneviratne and Treasury Secretary R. S. Samaratunga intervened. Both wrote separately to the Customs boss directing that the items be allowed for air freight. What’s more – Secretary Seneviratne spoke to Ms Charles on the telephone since she was in India. She, in turn, it is learnt, had given instructions to allow the items, senior Customs sources said.

“It is not the Presidential Secretariat that decides on such matters. It is we. We will decide. They cannot tell us what to do,” thundered the bureaucrat, to whom the letters went. “We don’t have to act on those letters,” he exclaimed. He relented only after a Finance Ministry official intervened. That took five long days and many persuasive telephone calls.

On what basis did the official decide on imposing a Customs duty, which did not exist? Now, the Finance Ministry’s Fiscal Policy Division has sought his explanation on why he insisted on a tax. He is learnt to have blamed it on the private company.

Little wonder, some bureaucrats do sometimes work against the country’s own interests. The good side, however, is that Ms Charles, the Director General apologised for what has happened.