By Patricia Mukhim
Every year Vigilance Awareness Week is celebrated around this season. The usual suspects are rounded up as speakers at such functions. So they circulate like bad coins between the North Eastern Electric Power Corporation (NEEPCO) to Power Grid to North Eastern Council to the Income Tax Department etc. My fear is that the celebration has ceased to be a week for serious reflection. It has metamorphosed into a ritual or the completion of a statutory formality. If that’s the case it’s a big waste of time for all concerned. The speakers are shooting in the dark; the listeners are taking everything with a large dose of salt without any desire to implement even a wee bit of what they hear.
My first disagreement is with the caption ‘Vigilance Awareness.’ Both words mean the same thing. Being vigilant means being aware and vice versa. So whoever coined the caption needs to do a reality check. Secondly, there should be more meaningful observances of the day where the employees of all the central government institutions and public sector undertakings (PSUs) get to speak up and not be lectured at or talked down to. Most of us who are dragged to speak at public functions have over the years developed the habit of talking down to people. And, on an occasion such as Vigilance Week we tend to dwell too much on corruption as if we are free of this malaise. I am sure some people in the audience feel like throwing rotten tomatoes at us. Unfortunately they are prisoners of their institutions. No wonder people are so frustrated. They never get to speak their minds! No one allows them to. The Boss is always right! But in their hearts they know the boss is a scoundrel like the (in)famous ‘Hari Sadu’ advert.
Now coming to the more serious part about Vigilance Week one wonders why the State Government does not observe this week. If they are doing it then it must be a well-guarded secret because one does not see any posters or banners anywhere inside or outside the state secretariat. Does it mean then that the directive from the Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) is only for central government establishments? Why so? There is as much corruption in the state government as there is in the central offices. Leakage of resource occurs on a large scale within the state government. There are other forms of corruption as well. Employees are never at their desks by 10.00 am Indian Standard Time and they leave before the scheduled 5.00 pm. Isn’t that theft of time? Isn’t time equal to money? So isn’t that grand corruption? Let’s ask our conscience because senior officers have probably given up a long time ago trying to discipline wayward staff!
By the way aren’t people expected to work eight hour shifts? If that is so, then 10.00 am to 5.00 pm is just seven hours. If you reduce one hour spent in eating tiffin then it works out to just six hours of work daily; that is if people are coming on time and leaving at 5 pm. But that’s not happening. They stroll in at 11.00 am and leave by 4.30 or 5 pm in summer and by about 4.00 pm in the winters. So how much of real time work does that add up to? Just about five or five and a half hours everyday! Is that an honest day’s work? Let conscience answer. Wonder why Anna Ji did not think of such issues and why he talks only about the mega bucks like the 2-G and 3-G scams. He needs to come to Meghalaya secretariat like an ordinary visitor to find out what happens in the government.
Most PSUs and central government offices have a vigilance officer (VO). He is supposed to ensure that the system is robust enough to deliver the goods without any leakage of public funds. But the VO is not independent. He also deals with a lot of other administrative matters where he himself may be tempted to collude with vendors who enter the establishment for various purchases and work orders. What happens then? Who will check the VO? Alternatively the VO may be a sincere guy but he is unable to draw up charges against his seniors because his position is not autonomous. If government is truly serious about curbing corruption then this faulty system must be corrected. It would be better to have a collegium of vigilance officials so that they counter check one another.
What I find most disturbing is the arrangement in the state government. The chief secretary is designated as the chief vigilance officer. The corruption buck stops at his door. Not a single person till date in Meghalaya has been prosecuted by the CVO for corrupt practices. Now the CVO is meant to keep the babus in check. Who will check political corruption? Is there a mechanism? Let’s not delude ourselves by flashing the RTI like the sword of Michael the Archangel. The RTI Act is a post-mortem of corruption that has happened. It is not a mechanism for preventive vigilance. RTI users ought to have the time and energy to go through the rules, procedures and practices that allow corruption to happen. Every government department does purchases. How transparent is the tendering process? Why does it allow nepotism which is so blatant in our system? Can a government official also do contract work as a side business? This is rampant in Meghalaya and it happens in the name of wives, girlfriends, sons and daughters. Is there a way of tracking these insidious relationships? Or is it too tiring and time consuming for the government to do so? If the government is fatigued by such activities then can civil society activists become sleuths?
We are a close-knit society and digging too deep might hurt someone we know, a kinsman or an in-law. What do we do then? Do we back off? If so then we should not even call ourselves activists. Activism is a double edged sword. It cuts both ways. Which is why activists themselves must have a clean slate. If someone asks an activist or an interest or pressure group what their known sources of income are, or whether their organisational accounts are audited and whether those accounts can be put up on the public domain, would they have a clear and ready answer? This is where things become problematic!
After the 2-G scam where some bureaucrats are in jail keeping their political masters company, their fraternity are complaining that it has become difficult to take decisions and to put down file noting on every decision taken or proposal made. This sounds like a bizarre excuse. If an officer observes due diligence and does not toe the political line, there is no way he can go wrong. In fact officers are today more empowered to say “No” to their political bosses and point out to the Tihar inmates as an example. Delay in clearing files is corruption in its worst form. Those who indulge in such practices should be booked for corruption too.
Most established NGOs today have computerized their entire financial processes and their management information systems (MIS) are in place. It is the government sector which is dragging its feet here. Next year on Vigilance Week we would like to have an account of how many central government establishments and state government departments have wired their whole set-up for easier checks and balances. Otherwise everything only ends up in pompous speeches.
(The writer can be contacted at patricia17 @rediffmail.com)