Govt. to expand public sector, but with discipline
25 March 2015 07:00 am
The new regime will continue to increase the size of the public sector despite its already sluggish nature, according to a top Cabinet minister.
“Our government has decided that the youth of the country needs to get employment, and we will do so,” Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake said.
The biggest allegation against the 2002-2004 UNP government was that they had not created enough jobs in the public sector.
Mirror Business inquired how such a move could be justified; given the already bloated public sector, which increased rapidly to 1.3 million during the past decade, with the previous administration hiring undergraduates who were not given proper roles within the hierarchy.
“That’s the general feeling, but we’re not going to be ill-disciplined. We’re going to be doing it with financial discipline,” he replied.
The cabinet may have taken the decision due to increasing public pressure.
However, during election time, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe too had said that the state sector
was bloated.
Recent media reports highlighted that while certain crucial institutions are understaffed, state-owned enterprises have been running at a loss due to overstaffing and unproductivity.
Karunanayake, at another occasion said that any state-owned enterprise which runs at a loss in the next two years would be shut down, instead of being privatized.
He said that this would be done by introducing
lean, mean management concepts practiced in the private sector.
(CW)