Editorial

Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath announced recently that the Digital Identification (ID) Project with Indian assistance is going to be the Government’s first major foreign investment and that a team from India will be arriving this month to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

During the recent state visit to India under the rubric of ‘connectivity’, both leaders agreed to collaborate in expediting ‘people-centric digitisation’, fast-tracking this project in addition to the 33 Indian projects in the North and East.

In the 1970s, when the present-day national identity card (NIC) was mooted, there was an Orwellian ‘Big Brother (the State) is Watching’ fear where the liberty and privacy of the citizen was going to be subjugated to the interest of the State. It did not turn out that way. However, the Digital ID Project, jointly with India, entails much more—the collection of a citizen’s data, biometric, financial, and family information, etc., for the purpose of creating an electronic national identity card (e-NIC). This can be used for all administrative and financial transactions that can effectively be digitalised in the modern banking economy—banking, driving licences, taxes, passports, pensions, EPF, insurance, etc.

The Indian integrated digital ecology (‘the stack’), Aadhaar, which is the model for Sri Lanka, has been widely endorsed by the World Bank and promoted in other developing countries. Among its many reported benefits is its success in empowering the poor, enhancing ease of financial transactions, and eliminating corruption and delays, including netting in those avoiding tax liabilities.

This project, however, will link Sri Lanka into the global debate about who owns a citizen’s personal data and digital profiles, whether its centralised collection—and in this case, by a foreign entity—can be prone to mistakes and to malicious hacking.

These concerns have been raised in India as well—petitioners went before its Supreme Court. By a majority decision, the Court dismissed the concerns, but one judge, who later became the Chief Justice of India, wrote a dissenting order agreeing in parts with these concerns. More recently, the New Indian Express wrote an editorial that US cybersecurity firm Resecurity had revealed that as many as 815 million Indians’ data had been compromised and were on sale on the dark web. The Indian Auditor General’s report in 2022 said India’s Unique Identification Authority has not sufficiently safeguarded their data vaults.

Much will depend on the small print of this pending MoU with India, if the Government is to go through with it. For now, there is no clarity on the terms, such as the cost of the project, the national security aspects, the upskilling of local human resources in its IT sector, who will handle the implementation—is it a local company, is it ICTA, and most crucially—who will have the source code that has access to the data?

The Joint Statement between India and Sri Lanka ‘acknowledged the presence of complementarities between the two economies’ for mutually beneficial interdependence. Sri Lanka must not go starry-eyed without building the safeguards against becoming dependent in key sectors of its critical infrastructure—in this instance, its digital infrastructure. especially to an external government-backed entity relinquishing Sri Lanka’s sovereign control.

Public service: Partner with it, don’t part with it

At the recently concluded presidential and parliamentary elections, the National People’s Power (NPP) drew near-unanimous support from the public servants, as indicated by the very high percentage of postal votes polled for them.

Once installed in government with an over two-thirds majority, however, the administration has suddenly found public officials to be a stumbling block. No doubt the party has by now fathomed that running a country—with all its constraints—is not as easy as levelling criticisms from the sidelines. But looking for scapegoats in the bureaucracy could backfire.

It is increasingly evident that the new dispensation has trouble trusting officials. One reason could be the rampant politicisation that gradually eroded the independence and professionalism of the public service. The dismantling of the old school civil service (CCS) turned administrative service (SLAS) opened the doors for high-jumpers and long-jumpers to curry favour with politicians for senior placements. The once-powerful Public Service Commission that protected officials was politically castrated a long time ago. Often politicians gave priority to loyalty over competence, resulting in incompetence and arrogance being two oft-cited attributes among a new genre of public servants.

Along with the corrupt politician came the corrupt officials. Those who refused to comply with this new culture were left behind. However, most NPP ministers and President Anura Kumara Dissanayake initially adopted a conciliatory, almost paternal, stance: “We will protect you,” they told the public servants.

Three months in, several senior ministers have begun to show their impatience, and not only begun to castigate the public service as an obstacle to policy implementation, the Government has also decided to establish investigation units in each ministry to hold officials accountable based on what’s reported to be a large number of complaints against them and widespread allegations of trade unions dictating terms. While ‘whistleblowing’ often can be a good thing, this directive can also open a ‘Pandora’s box’ into personal agendas, backstabbing of colleagues, and creating an environment of intrigue in the workplace of state institutions.

The standoff between the public service and the new administration is affecting service delivery. On the one hand, suspicious ministers are reluctant to heed the advice of bureaucrats whom they accuse of “creating problems, in the first place.” On the other, bureaucrats are learning that the Government they helped elect isn’t necessarily willing to dance to a familiar tune.

President Dissanayake may be, unwittingly, emulating the incoming US President Donald Trump, who has vowed to overhaul the US state service, cut the workforce, and slash expenses. Trump has designated his billionaire sidekick Elon Musk to be the executioner. Maybe, like his US counterpart, the Sri Lankan President might want to create a Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE. This will not be an actual department; just an outfit that will recommend ways and means of ensuring a leaner and more efficient public sector. That, as everyone knows, is easier said than done, as the mammoth public sector, whether in the USA or Sri Lanka, is no pushover. The ‘revenge’ of the public servant is dangerous.

Government is best when in partnerships with the public sector, private sector, unions, etc., not when adversarial.