the Ministry of Public Administration has recently issued a circular determining the minimum entry qualification for the public sector. Accordingly, entry qualification for a labourer is six passes with two credits at the GCE (Ordinary Level) Examination, at one sitting. This decision was heavily criticized by Provincial Councillors belonging to both the Opposition and the government. Although I was scheduled to speak as the last speaker from the government, the session was abruptly ended due to the lack of a quorum. Hence, I decided to express my views about the public sector salaries, in this column. President Mahinda Rajapaksa appointed a Salary and Cadre Commission to introduce a new salary structure for the public sector and in turn the Ministry of Public Administration issued the Administrative Circular No. 06/2006 based on this structure. Although several matters contained in the Circular were challenged in the Courts of Law, there was no public discussion about the problems caused by this circular. The respect earned by the high profile members of the Commission may have discouraged the people to criticize the circular in public. Nevertheless, in my view, a critical review of the salary structure of the public sector is a national duty. In terms of the Circular, although initial salary of a labourer is Rs 11,730, that of a ministerial secretary is Rs 47,515. Accordingly, the gap between the lowest and highest initial salaries in the public sector is 1:4. This ratio reflects the obsolete Marxist principle of “work as you can and earn as you need”. It is not in compliance with the trend in the public sector salary structures in the world. In most of the countries, the salary gap is in the range of 1:10 to 1:20. The salary gap in Singapore is as high as 1:38. As a result, the Singaporean Government is privileged to receive the service of the cream of the Singaporean people. Any government’s dream The Prime Minister of Singapore receives an annual salary of S$ 3,000,000 or Rs 300,000,000. He is the most paid employee in Singapore and his salary is the highest among Prime Ministers in the world. Not only the Prime Minster, the Singaporean Ministers are the best paid in the world. According to Lee Kuan Yew, the founder Prime Minister of Singapore, he was able to curtail corruption to a bare minimum because of higher salaries received by ministers. As ministers strictly adhered to the rule of law, the Prime Minister was able to make Singapore a law abiding nation placing the foundation for a rapid growth. Attraction of the best people to the public sector is any government’s dream. If a government fails to do so, it loses the grip on the country. For instance, the officers of the Central Bank should be smarter than officers of the commercial banks. Otherwise, the Central Bank fails to regulate the banking sector because the private bankers would be able to manipulate the regulations. Similarly, the best of the best should be the ministerial secretaries as they drive the entire nation. Hence, the highest salaries should be received not by the CEOs of the private companies but by ministerial secretaries. However, Sri Lankan Government has failed to attract the best because of maintaining the salary gap of 1:4 in the public sector. Although the highest salary for a secretary is only Rs 64,615, the CEO of the private sector receives salaries as high as Rs 1.5 million. As a result, not only the first layer but also the second and third layers of the cream avoid joining the public sector. Professionals are the worst victims of the Commission’s salary structure. Salaries received by lawyers, engineers and accountants are equivalent to just 40% of average earnings of professional practitioners. This pathetic situation discourages professionals to join the public sector. As a result, there are government institutions which deal with billions of rupees, without a Chartered Accountant. There are only a very few Chartered Accountants in the Auditor General’s Department which monitors accounting processes of all the institutions in the public sector. There is a huge list of government institutions which do not have any kind of qualified accountant. The government has been failing for several years to fill the engineer vacancies in the public sector. Forget the engineers for a moment. The government is not in a position to attract an adequate number of candidates to fill vacancies for the post of Technical Officer which is a lower grade in the technical sector. Although the government has repeatedly advertised the vacancies, qualified people do not wish to respond because of the huge gap in the salaries between the public and the private sectors. Semi government sector The Commission has considered only academic and professional qualifications along with experience to determine the salary for a particular post. However, there are other criteria that should be considered, such as professional risk and social recognition. Miners are vulnerable to breathing related sicknesses. Elephant caregivers take a huge risk compared to other animal caregivers. The people employed in risky jobs expect a higher salary as a compensation for the high risk taken by them. Hence, the risk factor is another criterion which decides the salary for a particular employment. Employees of the semi government sector have not been adequately rewarded by the Commission. Employees of corporations and statutory bodies are not entitled to a pension after their retirement. They do not receive benefits enjoyed by the government employees such as free railway warrants, duty free vehicle permits and concessionary housing loans. Adding to the burden, 12% or more of their salary will be deducted for the Employment Provident Fund (EPF). The loss caused to semi government sector employees was adequately compensated in the past by way of offering them a higher salary. The government should take immediate steps to appoint a new Salary and Cadre Commission to resolve the above explained issues. The most significant weakness of the previous Commission was its dominance by the public administrative service. The new Commission should be a balanced one including planning officers, employees of corporations and statutory bodies, professionals, academics, trade union representatives, economists and statisticians in addition to administrative service officers. As such a Commission has the capacity to look at the issue from different perspectives it has the potential to prepare a useful, fair and pragmatic salary structure. 2013-11-17 10:32:00 ( published on news paper )
Posted on: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 14:32:35 +0000
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