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| Sunday, 19 December 2004 |
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UPFA budget one of the best by Hiran H.Senewiratne The UPFA government's budget is one of the best, but it has resulted in expanding the public sector without any strategic plan, senior lecturer attached to the Department of Economics- University of Colombo, Dr. M.Ganeshamoorthy said. "Our public sector is a sinking ship because it is over crowded, inefficient and controlled by strong trade unions with political affiliations," Dr Ganeshamoorthy said at a public discussion organised by the Social Studies Department (SSD) of the Open University of Sri Lanka in partnership with the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung of the Federal Republic of Germany. The theme of this public discussion was "Economic Reality of the 2005 Budget". He said that the government sector is inefficient in many countries with very few exceptions in countries such as Singapore and France. This budget reversed the ongoing process to instal a small government by recruiting an additional 70000 to the cadre. 'This is not a rational decision for the government to take at this juncture when it is overcrowded' the lecturer said. An election promise of the UPFA to increase salaries by 70 per cent along with salaries of new recruits will put the country into further trouble, he said. Dr Ganeshamoorthy said that Sri Lankan youth prefer to work in the government sector due to job security, pension, social- status recognition other perks and benefits. Options that the government has at this moment are - collaboration projects with private sector, increase the absorption capacity of the private sector, reform of the education sector, provide self employment and finance/training to start self employment,he emphasised. Dr Ganeshamoorthy said that a nine-hour work increase to improve the efficiency in the public sector will not serve the purpose if their is no quality in work. "Efficiency can be achieved with no additional hours of work but by changing the culture in public sector organisations to increase the quality of work" he said. Another drawback of this budget was the over dependent on tax increase without curtailing the expenditure of the government, he said. Dr Ganeshamoorthy said that depending on tax revenue will automatically increase the consumption level, which will ultimately cause indirect inflation in the country. The budget has an economic vision compared to black money of the past, Senior lecturer of the Department of Economics- University of Colombo Dr.Ranjith Bandara said. He said that the government intention to promote and get assistance for the public sector with foreign grants was not practical in this scenerio, from the budget. Dr Bandara stressed the importance of having inter-sectoral linkages within public sector bodies especially with revenue-collecting agencies to strengthen its mechanism. |
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