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Civil servants back down, Minister goes ahead
By Shelani Perera
The country's top civil servants have backed out of their protest campaign saying they were now satisfied with Minister Mahinda Wijesekara's action against his Ministry secretary S.C. Manapperuma. With that threat over, Mr. Wijesekara, has gone ahead with the appointment of his nominee, G. Gunawardena as Project Director of the ADB funded Coast Conservation Project.

It was his appointment that sparked off the controversy between the Minister and his secretary. This in turn was to lead to a large-scale protest by civil servants. The Sri Lanka Administrative Service Association which was planning to stage a street protest had called off the protest after Minister Wijesekera had explained his side of the story in a seven-page letter to the association on Friday.

The association which called a meeting on Friday to set the date for the protest had instead discussed the contents of the lengthy letter sent by Minister Wijesekera.
On Thursday afternoon Minister Wijesekera had asked SLASA President S. Ranugge that he be given a chance to give his side of the story.

"The minister explained that his action was not against the civil servants but was due to the inefficiency of the secretary. The minister wanted to state his case to us. I told him that if he was able to give it in writing I could forward it to the association as we were meeting on Friday to decide on the date for the protest, " Mr. Ranugge said.

By Friday afternoon, a seven-page detailed letter, explaining the dispute had been faxed to the association. "We felt that the minister was humble enough to explain to us his side of the story. We never asked for it. He denied that he called the Secretary bakamoona (owl) but admitted that he had to take some harsh action as he felt the secretary was inefficient. We took all these factors into consideration and decided to call off the protest," Mr. Ranugge said.

However, the association is to write to the President and the Prime Minister to draw up a mechanism to tackle such confrontations. "We feel that if appropriate action is taken the moment such an incident takes place, a lot of problems can be solved. The higher authorities have to take serious note of this."

The clash between Minister Wijesekera and Mr. Mannapperuma took place three weeks ago when the Secretary refused to approve one of the minister's appointees to the post of project director in an ADB-funded project.

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