News

News

Top Treasury official quits, 1,300 officials in cold storage
A senior Treasury official has quit after being shuffled into a 'pool' while dozens of other officials of the former policy planning ministry have been kept in limbo without duties being assigned to them for the past five weeks after the new cabinet was sworn in.

The Treasury's Deputy Secretary, Faiz Mohideen, who had served in the department since 1994 prematurely retired after a special cabinet paper was passed for his removal. This cabinet paper was passed the same day it was presented though the usual practice was for such papers to be approved the following week. Mr. Mohideen who was relegated to the pool after heading the Treasury's External Resources Department for five years told The Sunday Times he did not wish to comment on what had happened.

Treasury sources said Mr. Mohideen's premature retirement was linked to differences he had with new Treasury Secretary P B. Jayasundara. Last week Dr. Jayasundara complained to the President that he was not in a position to carry out his duties due to the attitude of certain 'officials' and threatened to tender his resignation. President Kumaratunga had asked him to stay on saying she would resolve matters within two weeks.

Meanwhile, some 1300 public officials, many of them of the Administrative Service, have been kept in isolation after a government decision to scrap the Policy Development and Implementation Ministry which was under former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. They include some 800 Planning Officers and 500 Development Officers mainly in charge of foreign funded projects dealing with a variety of subjects ranging from education, health, irrigation, road development and water supply to rural economy. They have not been assigned to any other department or ministry so far.

According to Gazette notification, all subjects and functions and departments and statutory institutions not assigned specifically to any minister will continue to remain under the President, but the officials have so far not been assigned any duties.

Almost all the projects in which these officials were involved were funded by the World Bank, the ADB and the UNDP. The ministry's former additional secretary, S. Rahubadde, on Friday met with Presidential Secretary, W.J.S. Karunaratne but no resolution was reached. Mr. Rahubadde told The Sunday Times that with the scrapping of the ministry, the functions also had not been allocated to any other ministry.

Currently around 1300 employees report to work to their former ministry at the Central Bank building, but do not have any work to do.

Top

Back to News