Analyst: Bigger portfolio doesn’t mean more work for ministers

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath says the ex­pand­ed re­spon­si­bil­i­ties placed on some min­is­ters did not nec­es­sar­i­ly trans­late in­to a sig­nif­i­cant­ly heav­ier work­load, since much of the tech­ni­cal and ad­min­is­tra­tive work of Gov­ern­ment was car­ried out by pub­lic of­fi­cers.

Re­spond­ing to the re­align­ment of Cab­i­net re­spon­si­bil­i­ties made by the Prime Min­is­ter, Ra­goonath ex­plained that min­is­ters were pri­mar­i­ly re­spon­si­ble for pol­i­cy di­rec­tion, while tech­ni­cal ad­vis­ers, as­sis­tants and oth­er staff han­dled the day-to-day work of their re­spec­tive min­istries.

“Min­is­ters don’t re­al­ly do the work. Min­is­ters are ad­vised and min­is­ters make pol­i­cy de­ci­sions and so on. They’re not go­ing out there to do any ma­jor, any­thing by them­selves.”