‘‘Efficient’’ municipalities
View(s):Pedris Appo (short for Appuhamy), a retired agriculture expert who does farming, was amused on Thursday morning. “I say, did you see that advertisement in the Sunday Times last week on a Municipal Council offering repair services for a payment?” he asked during a morning call. “No, really,” I replied, adding: “Let me check and call you back.”
Rummaging through the newspaper pile, I found the Sunday Times and turning the pages came across an advertisement on Page 17 by the Anuradhapura Municipal Council.
The headline read: ‘Anuradhapura Dependable – Repair services undertaken for reasonable charges by the Municipal Maintenance Unit.’
It was offering services for a ‘reasonable fee’ in air-conditioning repairs, electrical services, plumbing repairs, carpentry, masonry, painting and flags, flagposts, banners, streamers. “Supplies and hoisting (sic) for ceremonial occasions. Trustworthiness is assured in houses, offices and business places will be visited by our technical crews. Hotline – 025-3134 499. Municipal Speed Maintenance Unit, Municipal Council, Anuradhapura,” it said.
I called back Pedris Appo, starting the conversation with “a municipal council offering paid repair services … this is very interesting”.
“I have never heard of this before. Municipalities can’t even get their own work done properly particularly in the efficient collection of garbage but now they are offering their services to the people for a fee,” said Pedris Appo.
“Maybe they have some good expertise they can share with the community and offer services at a reasonable price,” I said.
“I wonder whether it is legal to charge a fee for such services and enter these competitive fields with the private sector,” he replied.
On the other hand, the Colombo Municipal Council has outsourced its garbage collection to Abans Environmental Services for many years now and from all reports this process appears to be efficient. The same, however, cannot be said about efficient garbage collection in other municipalities, an example being the Dehiwela-Mount Lavinia Council where collection is ad hoc and very often residents have to make a ‘santhosam (tip)’ or in loose terms provide a ‘bribe’ to incentivise garbage collectors to come calling, regularly every week. Nothing works well without a ‘bribe’.
This is in addition to the end-of-the-year contributions that garbage collectors seek from residents. The municipalities, now it seems, are offering trustworthiness services for an extra fee when they cannot be trusted to collect our garbage regularly!
Municipalities are vested with wide powers and among them are enforcing taxes (rates) for the supply of basic services and looking after roads, drains, culverts, bridges, street lighting, maintenance of roads and streets, cutting trees that obstruct pedestrian and vehicular traffic, collection of garbage and a host of activities.
The biggest problem, in some municipalities, is garbage collection and if the municipality cannot do this properly, how can it offer its services for a fee to the public?
“When they can’t provide a proper service to the people and they are not doing any social service because these services are based on the taxes that you and I pay, they have the audacity to offer services at a fee using their workers who should be busy doing the work of the municipality for services already paid for by the public,” said a flustered Pedris Appo.
While the Anuradhapura Municipal Council, whose efficiency I must confess I don’t have a clue about and the comments here are in a general sense covering all or most municipalities, is offering these paid services, I wonder how fast it would react when a resident – home or institution – requires a paid service as advertised by it? Fast, one would reckon.
On the other hand, will it respond fast enough to calls from residents to collect the garbage which has been lying around for days or removing a tree that has fallen on the road or repairing street lights which don’t work or clearing drains that have got clogged?
Furthermore, do the municipalities offer an efficient customer service to residents at their front office operations – when residents have to make payments for various taxes and common amenities at the offices of various municipalities?
Taking the argument further, if municipalities are so efficient that they have time to offer their varied technical skills and expertise as a paid service to the public, then why outsource garbage collection in the Colombo municipal limits to a private collector (Abans)? Don’t they possess the skills to collect the garbage and thereby reduce the taxes paid by the people?
Very often in some municipalities, residents are sent from pillar to post to get services and in the case of garbage collection, its sometimes a call to an influential municipal councillor or the mayor that ensures that this duty is performed that week.
Garbage collectors can also be rude. In some municipalities, the practice is that residents are told to separate their garbage into food waste, plastics and bottles and garden waste, with collection dates varying for each of these items. Sometimes, when households have meticulously separated these items, the garbage collectors take all and dump them together. At other times, the story is different.
Once, the home-help of a resident had mistakenly put plastics and bottles into one bag, infuriating the garbage collector who shouted at her dumped the garbage on the road, asking her to separate it properly. Is this how garbage workers should react to a mistake? On the other hand, for a paid service, as offered by the Anuradhapura Municipal Council, workers would have to be polite and efficient. Why can’t they do the same in all services for which the resident pays taxes and should get these services as an entitlement and not a favour?
As I ended my conversation with Pedris Appo on an issue that confronts many residents, I could hear the usual vigorous conversation under the margosa tree with Kussi Amma Sera saying, “Mage massinata nagara sabhave vedak karaganna podi gathamanavak denna sidda wuna (My brother-in-law had to offer a bribe to get some work done at the municipal council).
“Rajaye karyalawala ehama thamai (That’s the way in government offices),” said Mabel Rasthiyadu. “Allasak nethuwa, kisi wedak karaganna beha (Without a bribe nothing gets done),” said Serapina, offering her two-cents worth to the conversation.
Listening to them, I realized that nothing will change in Sri Lanka unless the politicians stop taking bribes and set an example to the rest of the public sector to work for the people, not the people working for them.
It would be interesting to see whether municipalities will also offer – as a service – to put up political posters and hoardings during the forthcoming election period for a fee, when their role is to remove these in unauthorised public places.
Oh! How I wish there was a Lee Kuan Yew in Sri Lankan politics.