2013 declared as the Year of Excellence in Public Services

The declaration of 2013 as the year of excellence in public services by the President during the budget speech last month, received a head start when Secretary to the President Lalith Weeratunga convened a meeting of all Ministry Secretaries on 11 December in Colombo to apprise them of the expectations of the Government to deliver an efficient and courteous service to the public at central, regional and grass root levels.

In a bid to fully realise this goal, Secretaries were instructed to strengthen mechanisms to address public grievances, make maximum use of ICTs and efficiently deploy human resources, including the recently recruited graduates, to make Government services easily accessible to the people.

Discussions also centred on the proposed setting up of a special monitoring unit headed by secretary to the Cabinet of Ministers to monitor service delivery at peripheral and grass root levels by all Government agencies.

Secretary to the President also stated that progress in the implementation of the LLRC recommendations by the relevant agencies is on track, as observed during review meetings by the special committee monitoring the implementation of the LLRC National Action Plan. He instructed Secretaries to ensure that activity completion schedules are properly observed since the Treasury has allocated sufficient funds for reconciliation activities in its new budget for 2013.

Ministry Secretaries were also informed that the President will follow up on his district progress review meetings undertaken in 2012, by visiting ministries and making personal reviews of development activities starting by January.  Secretary to the Prime Minister S. Amarasekera, Secretary to the Cabinet Sumith Abeysinghe, Secretary to the Treasury Dr P.B. Jayasundera, also addressed the Ministry Secretaries.