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| Sunday, 12 February 2006 |
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Implement 01/2006 circular immediately, say professionals Professionals in government service have launched trade union action to force the government to immediately implement the 01/2006 circular which proposes a decent salary structure for all government servants. Fifteen trade unions of professionals including doctors, engineers and SLAS officers said that the crisis in the state service was due to qualified and experienced professionals leaving the service. This will worsen in the future if the government does not act fast. The circular proposed scientific salary structure for all levels of government servants. Professionals said that the new structure will put the government service in order removing complex salary anomalies which prevailed earlier. It was implemented from January and later put on hold on a directive by President Mahinda Rajapakse following representations from some trade unions. Keeping qualified and experienced professionals in government service has become a challenge with the increasing demand from the private sector, foreign funded projects as well as overseas. Salaries of professionals in the government sector are much less compared to the private sector. Secretary of the Government Medical Officers' Association (GMOA) Uditha Herath told the Sunday Observer that the basic initial salary of a medical officer in the government sector is Rs. 15,000 compared to Rs. 50,000 with many other perks in the private sector. The Public Service Engineers' Association said that the initial basic salary of an engineer in the government sector is Rs 9,500 while it is Rs 25,000 in the private sector. As a result new engineering graduates are reluctant to join government service. The situation is similar for university teachers and today the salary of a senior professor is around Rs. 45,000 per month. A senior lecturer-grade 1 and grade 2 are paid Rs. 43,000 and Rs. 37,000. However, private educational institutions affiliated to foreign universities now offer over Rs. 100,000 per month for a senior professor with other perks. The brain drain is also a major issue. Dr. Herath said that around 50 out of 600 doctors who passed out annually from medical colleges leave the country. This is worse in the IT, engineering, accountants and architectural fields. The new salary structure was formulated by the National Council for Administration (NCA) chaired by senior administrative officer Tissa Devendra. The NCA took two and a half years to formulate the salary structure and it considered methods which were successful in other countries and also obtained the views of trade unions and other stakeholders. The NCA functioned as an independent commission and professionals demanded that all political and trade union interference to the commission's function be stopped forthwith. (GW) |
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