President appoints special commission to settle public sector salary anomalies  

A special 15 member commission has been appointed by President Maithripala Sirisena to review existing salary structures of employees in the public service and make recommendations within two months commencing from August 20.
According to the president’s proclamation directive published in a gazette notification, the commission will conduct a study on present salary structures of employees in public service, to minimize salary anomalies among different services in the entire public service and in state corporations, statutory boards and government owned companies.
This will be done by the commission through a systematic evaluation of the nature of the role and responsibilities of the staff of such public services.
They will make recommendations to provide an optimal salary structure for the public sector devoid of salary anomalies and enable the recruitment of qualified officers from the labour market and retain them, the gazette notification revealed.
The members of the committee are S. Rannugge (Chairman) , K.L.L. Wijeratne, T.P. Collure, C.P. Siriwardene, Sudharma Karunaratne, Janaka Sugathadasa , Dharani S. Wijethilake, Lalith R. de Silva, G.S. Edirisinghe, A.R. Deshapriya , B.P.P.S. Abeygunarathne, Dr. Palitha Abeykoon, P. Thangamayil, S.D. .Jayakody and M.C. Wickramasekera.
The cabinet of ministers granted its approval to set up this commission on a proposal submitted by Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera to the cabinet on August 14.
The recent strike of railway workers has prompted the government to set up this special commission to formulate new a salary structure and make recommendations on the possibility of increasing salaries of entire public sector settling salary anomalies of all government servants including the railway workers.
The President will hold a special meeting with all responsible sectors to solve the railway workers issues tomorrow (August 23), President of the Railway Guards Union, Aloka Jayasinghe said. (Bandula)