Recent disputes at the Sri Lanka Inventors Commission

"When I accepted the position of the Commissioner of SLIC in 2006, the annual budget was around Rs. 8million. Most of this money had been spent to pay the salaries of the staff of 14 officers, to maintain two vehicles, and to pay for the building it occupied. The remaining funds had been spent to support few village level inventors and to run a district level school innovation promotion program."
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by Thrishantha Nanayakkara

(July 26, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) I decided to write this article after seeing a series of articles about the Sri Lanka Inventors’ Commission (SLIC). Some articles accused the present commissioner for mismanaging intellectual property and some articles accused some officers for fraud. Though at present I have no interest in SLIC, I was tempted to write because I was the commissioner of SLIC in 2006/07, and the commissioner had mentioned that the said frauds took place because the past commissioners overlooked the work of the staff.

To do justice to the commissioner, I must mention that it is a rare decision of a professional to leave a developed country to return to Sri Lanka to serve in a Government Institute. He has taken this decision when his children are in a very critical age of their life, with full knowledge that serving as a chairman of a Government institute attracts mud than applause. This should be fully respected.

When I accepted the position of the Commissioner of SLIC in 2006, the annual budget was around Rs. 8million. Most of this money had been spent to pay the salaries of the staff of 14 officers, to maintain two vehicles, and to pay for the building it occupied. The remaining funds had been spent to support few village level inventors and to run a district level school innovation promotion program. However, I noticed that the staff was extremely energetic and motivated. Collectively we agreed on a common fundamental basis that the future of a Nation depends on the extent to which asking two simple questions: 1) why did it happen that way? 2) is there a better way to do this? has gone into the National culture. Then they suggested me to submit a proposal to the treasury to fast phase the National Innovations promotion program. Our collective proposal that included product incubation in collaboration with local universities, and an expanded outreach program to stimulate a broad based innovative culture in Sri Lanka made a step change of the character of SLIC by attracting an annual budget of Rs. 50million. Though this is negligible compared to what Singapore invested in promoting innovations at the early stages of her rapid development program, the positive response further galvanized the motivation of our small staff. After a very exhausting year, the staff and I were very proud to hold the first National exhibition of refined exhibits to attract investors. We titled it “Opportunities-2006’. Volunteering to work is not very common in the Government sector. However, the staff at SLIC volunteered to do extra work without extra pay. For instance, the accountant volunteered to coordinate the promotion programs in Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, one driver volunteered to coordinate the work of Hambantota and the other to coordinate the work of Badulla. The only Tamil speaking officer volunteered to coordinate North, East, and the Central Provinces. Together they held 52 promotion programs within just one year. However, I warned the staff to stick to Government regulations, because my experience suggests that the Sri Lankan Government system still follows colonial traditions that punish mistakes they make in ambitious investments than recognizing their progressive attitude. Therefore, our board meetings were very elaborate. The Auditor General’s Department also gave us fullest support by being constructively critical.

I read the recent articles about the staff against the above backdrop.

First the commissioner in his interview to the Daily news on 27th July 2010 under the title “Protracted Fraud at Inventors Fund” mention that he has interdicted five officers for fraud. However, he later mentions that the investigations are on-going. Therefore, the above statement is too conclusive and defamatory on the look of it. One example he quotes is that “Rs. 18.2 million have been spent on the same inventors over and over among 14 persons, who have been favored by Commission’s Projects and Programs Department”.

I do not mind 14 persons winning funding awards over and over as far as they deserve the award. What was shocking in this statement is that if this is a fraud, this must have been going on during my time as the title of the interview suggests. Then the commissioner mentions that the past commissioners did not notice this fraud because they were part-timers.

I fully agree that past commissioners were part-timers. For instance, I was a senior lecturer at the University of Moratuwa while serving as the commissioner of the SLIC. However, it is not a reason for me to overlook a malpractice at least at the point of board meetings where a representative of the National Treasury was also among the members of the board.

Since this impliedly accuses me, I kindly request the present commissioner to clarify the following in more detail.

1. How did the commissioner come to the conclusion that the above 14 innovators were not the most deserving people to award the funds compared to the competing applicants during the time span concerned? Is there any instance where the projects department has over-ruled the recommendation of the expert selection panel, and has the board of the SLIC endorsed such over-ruling?

2. What is meant by the statement “The moneys of the Inventors’ fund have been used to provide for this selected few of 14 persons without adhering to the Commission’s principles or criteria for disbursing funds”. I would be very much grateful if the commissioner could point out where the principles or criteria had been violated, and if so how many of such cases had happened during my tenure as the commissioner because it is useful for me to know where I had been misled as he suggests.

3. I guess the statement “In some cases officials have given millions of rupees to school boy productions such as paddy-husk hearths” refers to supporting an innovator in Dehiattakandiya. If it is correct, I remember this particular case, where the innovator later developed his own commercial venture that produces on average 8 paddy husk based kilns a month, generating a monthly income of around Rs. 1.2 million. In my view the above investment was not in vain though it could have looked a risky investment. I should openly mentioned that I backed the staff’s view of funding a small number of very risky projects to compensate for the lack of venture capital firms that fuel innovative economies in the rest of the world. Therefore, if the commissioner thinks that such investments had been reckless, I wish to kindly request him not to blame the staff, but to blame me instead.

4. The statement “A director has approved a grant of Rs. 1.5 million to commercialize a clay filter which has no technological value whatsoever” baffled me. I would like to see the technical report that confirms that the above innovation has no technological value whatsoever. As I can remember, the ITI was contracted to assess the technical viability of the stand alone water purification systems under a grand challenge launched by the SLIC in 2006 as a measure to curb water based kidney diseases reported in the North Central Province. The board of the SLIC nor any staff member took any funding decision based on their own assessment of the technical viability of any product. Rather, it was based on the recommendation of an expert panel or a relevant technical institute. Therefore, I request the commissioner to publish the technical report that condemns the technological value of the above innovation.

Once again, I wish to stand by the memorable service done by the small staff at the SLIC during 2006/07, and for volunteering to challenge their own limits of capability. They knew quite clearly that the most difficult part of promoting innovations is interpretation of the potential of an idea. Any expert who has experience in this area knows that it requires judgment that sometimes looks illogical. Therefore, they heavily relied on the assessment of expert panels. Of course, they may have added their own interpretations in difficult judgments. I still respect the staff of SLIC for being one professional group in their process to make judgments. If they had done any frauds, they should be punished, and I would have been the first to do so. However, it should be handled professionally. They should be assumed innocent until proven guilty, and they should never be humiliated in media especially by the commissioner himself who directs the investigations. The classic “tale of the chalk circle” tells us that the true mother will let go of the child and lose the game, than winning the game at the expense of the child’s life. Similarly, a lot of people worked hard and shed their sweat and tears to build the good name of the SLIC from near oblivion. Therefore, I urge the staff and the commissioner to settle any internal disputes without tarnishing the good image of this fine institute.

With best wishes to the Sri Lanka Inventors’ Commission,