A video, making rounds on social media platforms yesterday showed an employee of the Departments of Railways, halting a passenger locomotive mid-crossing on a busy public road, where motor traffic is halted on either side, to dismount and casually walk up to a roadside vendor to buy food. The video attracted wide ranging condemnation from the public. However, some have pointed out that at that particular railway way crossing is next to a train station and that the locomotive engine overruns the platform and blocks the road when it comes to a halt at the station for commuters to embark and disembark. Some have defended the actions of the Railways employee stating he was only getting lunch, when commuter’s boarded the train.

Irrespective of the differing views about the incident, the fact that this transpired, and perhaps more often than reported, highlights a serious flaw in the state services sector in Sri Lanka. 

The state sector, bloated and cumbersome, is better known for its inefficiency and poor service to the public. While there are many essential state services, and many state officials and employees who do perform their duties effectively, the larger public perception of the state sector is one, which is negative.  There has been a long-standing culture of indifference towards the customer, and in general to the public from those in the state sector, especially those who work in the front end-service providers. This indifference, which many Sri Lankan citizens feel when they walk into a state sector institution or attempt to use one of its many services, is normally channelled by state employees who view their customers (tax-paying citizens) as a nuisance. This arrogance of state sector employees is part of the broader culture of impunity and lack of accountability which has been propagated by Sri Lanka’s political elites for decades. 

In basic terms, many citizens are often made to feel that the state sector employee is doing them a favour, or has to go out of their way to provide the service, which the employee gets paid to do as a form of employment. Thus, the approach of many state employees is to boss around citizens and send them from pillar to post within state institutions, through a labyrinth of red tape which is of their own creation.    

The Railway locomotive operators’ behaviour is in line with this long entrenched subculture, which has been allowed to perpetuate by successive governments over decades. Such mind-sets’ are now entrenched and difficult to correct, given the years of service (or dis-service) employees have put in under such circumstances. However, such behaviour should not be tolerated. The behaviour by this locomotive operator would not be tolerated in the private sector, there would have been repercussions, and such practices would not happen with such a care-free attitude even if such did happen on a rare occasion. 

When it comes to critical services, such as utilities and public transport which have state sector monopolies, the associated trade unions, which are also politically linked, tend to take control of the sector and impede its effective administration. This is why taking disciplinary action in the state sector is difficult for state officials, because trade union action – the dreaded – all crippling strikes, hangs over their heads like the Swords of Damocles if they were to take strict action against a state employee. Today, some trade unions behave like mafia groups, as they know they control the monopoly of a critical service, and by the threat of disruption they get to control the entire operation as it suits them. 

In the end, the public pays the tax, and bears the pain and suffering at the hands of such trade unions and errant state sector employees, like the locomotive operator, who so carelessly left his station, risking the safety of commuters, while everyone around him was inconvenienced, to have his tea and lunch. This system of rule by fear, in the state sector, enabled by politics and monopolies must end. The taxpayer should not have to be flogged to get services he or she has already paid for, or be put at risk due to the ego and indifference of a few, who consider themselves above the law.