It’s official and the cat is out of the bag from their own. Last week the BJP top brass, a party that rules India and Goa too admitted that Goa was being run not by the Cabinet but by a lone bureaucrat. A wire service reported BJP’s National General Secretary (Organisation) Ram Lal saying, “If choosing an alternative CM is so difficult, we should just appoint his Principal Secretary P. Krishnamurthy to the post. After all, he’s virtually calling the shots in administration without uttering a word for months now.” The report also revealed (what Goans always knew) that Krishnamurthy, a 1997-batch Indian Administrative Service officer has been Parrikar’s favourite over two decades is known to wield more authority and say in matters of administration than most Ministers as well as the Chief Secretary himself. So we know who the Boss is now.
To very well know how Goa is run, Goans may well refer to the BBC cult classic Yes Minister (and Yes Prime Minister) where Minister Paul Hacker explains, “Open Government is rather like the live theatre: the audience gets a performance. And it gives a response. But, like the theatre, in order to have something to show openly, there must first be a much-hidden activity. And all sorts of things have to be cut or altered in rehearsals, and not shown to the public until you have got them right”. Doesn’t that remind us of Amchem Goem? Whether it is the failure to ensure that Goans get formalin free fish that is defended by a Minister (who’s responsible department is understaffed) or it is defending the Government of the Missing CM (where bureaucrats run riot managing Goa), what we now know is that Goa isn’t run by its ‘byte and statement’ serving Ministers and MLAs but its civil servants.
So the State runs on its own steam and everyone runs through the charade of governance. While the Ministers and MLAs try to cover up their tracks of mis-governance, the civil servant is the silent operator responsible for this state of affairs. As the Chief Minister again wields the remote and his band of bureaucratic brothers resume post the minor hiccup, it would be prudent for Goa to know that the people responsible for Goa’s financial mess and its march towards the Debt Trap are its bureaucrats who are signing on the dotted lines and going through the paces but refusing to say a no to the Government’s wasteful expenditure. In the absence of the ailing Finance Minister, in the face of a Rs 13500+ crore debt; the Bureaucrats could have stuck to a path of austerity and fiscal discipline. But they didn’t. When the Executive kneels before the Government, reason gives way to Quixotic adventures and expenses. Imagine there’s no money coming in as the Bureaucrats dish out bank cheques after another with no checks and balances. Goa is selling its Security Bonds to raise money for monthly expenditures including salaries, welfare schemes etc. None of the pompous schemes announces over the past half year has the monetary backing to make it float. Goa’s finances are in the hands of those who cannot be questioned. As they said it in Yes Minister,” A good speech isn’t one where we can prove that we’re telling the truth – it’s one where nobody else can prove we’re lying” (fits well on our Ministers) and “Civil servants have an extraordinary genius for wrapping up a simple idea to make it sound extremely complicated.” (aptly sums up our bureaucrats).
Not surprisingly, the favourites amongst Goa’s Civil Servants are like trophy wives of Kings in ancient and mediaeval times. They can stay on beyond the mandated three-year terms, are privy to all wheelings and dealings of their Masters and garner huge bounties in their line of duty. They are secretive and equally instrumental in pushing governance to the brink. They are, to re-quote the BJP leader, “virtually calling the shots in administration without uttering a word”. They are ultra vires, beyond Goa’s reach.
