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| Sunday, 18 May 2003 |
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Shortage of staff at G.A.'s Dept. : Court cases held up by Shanika Sriyananda An acute shortage of staff at the Government Analyst's Department and the resultant delay in submitting forensic and other relevant reports has forced a number of criminal cases, some of them handled by the Attorney General's Department to be put on hold for an indefinite period. Reports that are being delayed include analyses on blood samples, narcotics, food and questioned documents. According to informed sources, the GA's Department is running at 57 per cent its capacity, and needs an additional 17 scientific officers to sort out the backlog and have the place running smoothly. But sources feel it is not likely to happen soon, as the current vacancies have been in existence for the past three years. The Department needs nine assistant analysts, four senior Analysts, an Assistant, a deputy Assistant, a senior Assistant Examiner of Questioned Documents and an assistant examiner. The shortage of scientific officers, has, according to informed sources, created a backlog of 165,000 cases, referred to the Department by the courts, police, customs, excise and other government institutions. These include a large number of cases submitted by the Judicial Medical Officers, 7,760 cases involving illicit liquor and 3,360 cases that require toxicology analysis. According to the sources, there is only one officer at the Toxicology section. The shortage has also affected the overseas training programme of the Department compelling it to refund more than Rs. 3 million allocated for training, back to the Treasury last year. K. Sivaraja, Government Analyst said that the funds had to be returned as senior officers could not be released for specialised training because of the work overload. Sivaraja, said that repeated requests to the Scientific Service Board (SSB) to rectify the situation had been ignored, although it had conducted an examination for new recruits last year. Mrs. Vijitha Seneviratne, Acting Secretary, SSB confirmed that the examinations were held in February 2002, but said that new recruitment were suspended under Management Circular No. 16 of the Finance Ministry, and hence, the SSB was not at fault. |
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