An advisor is normally an expert in a particular field. It could include persons with cross-functional and multi-disciplinary expertise. The advisor is a mentor or guide and not a consultant. The latter is engaged because of his/her ability to source funds for projects and because of the person’s technical expertise. A consultant performs a functional role. Advisors on the other hand are part of the leadership hence they are also privy to the functioning of the government and to decisions taken. The MDA Government now has six advisors, four of whom are accommodated because of political compulsions. Since all the advisors are paid from public funds and are not doing pro-bono work the public needs to know the terms of reference under which they have been appointed. The public also need to know (a) what their areas of expertise are (b) what advice they have tendered to the Government in the last one year (c) whether the Government has acted on that advice and what the outcomes are.
It is said that voting alone does not a democracy make. The public must be vigilant about how and for what purpose government spends money. The MDA Government has been complaining of funds crunch ever since it took over in March 2018, yet it has no compunctions of appointing people to superfluous positions merely because they are camp followers of political parties. How are these six advisors adding value to governance in Meghalaya? Have these questions been posed in the Assembly sessions? Or are the questions ignored because every government does the same thing so no one has the moral right to raise questions that are of public importance?
The need to appoint advisors assumes that those in the Government (both politicians and bureaucrats) do not have the knowledge and expertise to run the show, hence they have to rely on these advisors who are expected to be more knowledgeable and resourceful than all the functionaries of the Government put together. In a sense, the need to appoint advisors undermines the very Government that appoints them. At the level of the Central Government we have a Chief Economic Advisor who is an eminent personality in the realm of economics. There is a National Security Adviser (NSA) who is a specialist in security affairs and so on. The task of every advisor is well defined. Hence every advisor executes a specific task or tasks. Will the MDA Government inform the public as to the specific tasks and areas of expertise of the four political appointees and what is the justification for appointing them?