Appreciations

Deshabandu Harold Herat, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs and later Minister of Justice and for six years the Minister of State for Finance, passed away on September 1 at the age of 76 years. He was the M.P. for Nattandiya from 1977 to 1989 and thereafter M.P. for the Puttalam District for another 12 years until 2001. A gentleman politician of the highest calibre, I came to know him when I was appointed as the State Secretary of the Ministry of Finance in 1990. From then until the conclusion of the general election in August 1994, I served as his State Secretary for four and a half years.

I did not know Mr. Herat at the time of my appointment and telephoned my predecessor and University friend Mr. D. Wijesinghe, the present Secretary to the Cabinet. He told me that my new Minister was a congenial person and that he had already spoken to him about me and gave me his residence telephone number to contact him.

When I telephoned the Minister and introduced myself, he greeted me with the words, “I say your predecessor Wijesinghe gave you a thundering recommendation and said that you will be better than him.” I was deeply moved by this warm welcome and we spoke to each other as if we were long lost friends. I was also grateful to Mr. Wijesinghe for having recommended me in such glowing terms, which is not often done by fellow public servants.

At that time the Cabinet portfolio of Harold Herat was Foreign Affairs and he came often to the Ministry of Finance to perform his duties as the State Minister of Finance. Since the Prime Minister at that time, D.B. Wijetunga, was also the Minister of Finance, many functions of the Finance Minister were delegated to the Minister of State. There were a large number of important corporations, statutory boards and departments functioning under the Finance Ministry. Regular progress review meetings were held with the heads and senior staff of these institutions and these were chaired by the Minister of State. He took a great interest in the progress of these institutions and these meetings helped to keep them on their toes in respect of their normal day-to-day functions as well as the effective implementation of development plans.

Another task delegated to him was the approval of foreign travel of officers in the Ministry, and the Department and institutions under the Ministry. Mr. Herat adopted a liberal attitude regarding foreign travel since most of these visits overseas were financed under foreign aid programmes. So I was able to assure officers anxious about the approval of the Minister to proceed overseas that he would never stand in their way specially if backed by foreign funding. This was not the position in several other Ministries.

The two of us often travelled out of Colombo to participate in Presidential Mobile Secretariats conducted in various parts of the country during the Presidency of R. Premadasa to bring the Government closer to the people and attend expeditiously to their problems.

We became close working together in the day-to-day administrative work of the Ministry and in our travels outstation. After sometime he told me that it was a pity that we were always confined to Ministry work and not able to engage in small talk outside the realm of our official work. Just before a visit to Matara for a Ministry Mobile Service when the two of us were to leave one evening for the Weligama Rest House and the next day for Matara, he told me that we could travel together and have a good chat while going in the car. But as we reached Wellawatte on the way to Weligama he was fast asleep and woke up just before we reached our destination. I was later told by the family that he had the good fortune to fall asleep anywhere at any time.

I also accompanied him on foreign travel where he represented the Minister of Finance at meetings relating to finance. Some were annual meetings of the ESCAP held in Bangkok or other cities in Asia and the Pacific. A more important event was the annual Commonwealth Finance Ministers Conference which was held in the Bahamas in 1993.

It was a round the world trip, the first lap from Colombo to London, where we stayed privately with friends or relatives. Then to the Bahamas via America. After participating in the conference and a day or two in the Bahamas we returned to Colombo with a night stop over in Hawaii. His Co-ordinating Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Walter Perera, also often joined us in our foreign travels and regularly in the Presidential and Ministry Mobile Services.

During these travels, I was able to observe the character of Mr. Herat. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth to an affluent family, he never flaunted his wealth and lived a comfortable life but not too extravagant. His kindness and compassion to those in distress and happiness at the fortune and progress of the successful were noble traits in his personality. A man with a deep sense of humility he had cordial and friendly relations with public servants who worked for him treating all of them with respect and courtesy. He never requested a public servant to do anything irregular and exercised the powers vested in him judiciously and correctly. For this reason President Premadasa held him in high esteem.

After the assassination of President Premadasa, the Prime Minister, D.B. Wijetunga succeeded him as President and continued to hold the Finance portfolio. Thus, Mr. Herat presented the National Budget to Parliament on two occasions in 1993 and 1994. On those occasions we met often, sometimes at his official residence in Colombo, to discuss the Budget speech. That was perhaps the pinnacle of his political career. Being the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the State Minister of Finance was also an important combination but he was shifted from the Cabinet portfolio of Foreign Affairs to Justice in 1993. He was able to play a more active role in the Finance Ministry when the Minister of Finance became the President.

I well remember his last day in the Finance Ministry two or three days before the General Election in August 1994. Our office was located on the third floor of the Treasury building and when he was leaving I walked with him to the lift and wished him well having a premonition that it was the last occasion we would be meeting in the Finance Ministry. Thereafter, we were in touch with each other mainly by telephone since he was most of the time at Marawila. He had a grand birthday party a few years ago at the picturesque Colombo Golf Club where we met a large number of his old friends. I spoke to him about two months before his demise and knew that he was not well but did not realize that the end was so near. I am sorry that I could not see him in hospital in Colombo being not aware of it.

So a long, warm and fruitful association came to an end but I and other public servants who associated with him will remember him as a congenial, honest, upright and humble politician and great humanist.

A man rich in humanity, compassion and commitment