Government officers to take trade union action for salary hike

Sri Lankan public officers provoked by Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa’s statement branding them as a burden to the country have unanimously decided to take trade union action demanding  a salary increase or an allowance of Rs. 16,000 per month as the cost of living is sky rocketing.

In a letter to Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa, the Government Officers Trade Union Association noted that the public sector employees numbering around 1.5 million and 6 million of their dependents are suffering from severe economic difficulties.

According to recent survey of the Census and Statistics Department, at least Rs. 58,000 is needed for the upkeep of a family, the Association said.   

Sri Lanka’s public sector has become an “unbearable burden” on the economy, Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa said at a news conference on Saturday after bringing a budget proposal to increase the retirement age of public sector employees.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa after slashing valued added taxes in December 2019 to build a ‘production economy’ hired 53,000 graduates in to the public sector and set up a Multi-Purpose Development Task Force to hire another 100,000 workers who had passed Grade 8 to ‘reduce poverty’.

In 2020, 86 percent of all taxes collected from the people went to pay for salaries and pensions.

In his budget speech Finance Minister Rajapaksa had allocated an addition 30,000 million rupees to address the salary anomalies of teachers who recently went on strike to push their demands.