Sri Lanka: Commission To Review Public Sector Salaries
Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena has proclaimed the establishment of a Special Commission to make recommendations to provide an optimal salary structure for the state sector devoid of salary anomalies.
Issuing a Gazette Extraordinary on Monday, the President appointed a 15 member Commission chaired by S. Ranugge to conduct a study of existing salary structures in the public service and to minimise salary anomalies among different services in the entire public service.
This includes State Corporations, Statutory Boards and Government owned companies.The new Agency is entrusted to carry out a systematic evaluation of the nature of the role and responsibilities of public servants. They will also come up with recommendations to enable the recruitment of qualified officers from the labour market and retain them. Its initial mandate is for a two month period commencing from August 20, 2018.
The Special Commission will study the impact on the provision of proposed salary scales to the Sri Lanka Railway Supervisory Management Service. It will focus on the existing salary circulars in relation to the salaries and allowances of the Public Service and recommend methodologies to resolve any emerging issues.
It is expected to recommend solutions to minimise salary anomalies caused by the existing salary circulars for the railway, health, higher education and education and postal service sectors that have made recent demands to increase salaries and allowances.It has also been asked to make recommendations for a salaries and wages structure that will guide to minimise the anomalies in government and semi-government institutions.
The President through the Gazette also directed all public officers to furnish all information required by the Commission. The new Commission is in addition to the existing Salaries and Cadre Commission. “The government intends to obtain recommendations on urgent remedial action that can be taken after analyzing factors that have led to unrest owing to inequalities, anomalies and conflicts that exist in salary structures in state the sector, especially in services such as railway, postal and health where a large number of trade unions operate, as well as the All Island Services,” the Gazette states.