CHATURANGA PRADEEP SAMARAWICKRAMA 
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Budget cheated state employees; nothing can be expected: Joseph Stalin
COLOMBO (Daily Mirror) - None of the requests made by the state employees were fulfilled by the 2024 budget presented by the President, Ceylon Teachers' Union (CTU) General Secretary Joseph Stalin said.
Addressing the media after the budget, he said that the President had admitted that no salary increments were given to state sector employees after 2015.
The state employees requested a Rs. 20,000 salary increment. But the budget had given an increment for the existing Rs. 7,800 cost of living allowance by another Rs. 10,000 from April next year and said that the remaining salary would be given later.
"Consider all the facts: no salary increase has taken place. The value-added tax (VAT) had increased to 18% before the budget. After the increase in VAT, all other commodities, including the electricity bill and related billing items, have already gone up. With the increase in essential commodities, this salary increase cannot be considered a salary increase," Stalin said.
"This budget was not concerned about any salary increases and did not provide solutions to the principals' and teachers' salary anomalies.
"Salary increament through this budget does not help to manage with any other cost of living elements.
"However, the budget had revised the deduction percentage from the salary for pensioner contributions to 8 percent for all service categories from April 2024 onward. None of the state employees expected this kind of increment."
Stalin claimed that there was no new proposals relating to education in this budget.
Therefore, the teachers union had decided to engage in trade union actions in the future if no changes were made to state employees salaries on the second and third readings of the budget, he said.
He finally said that the state employees had been cheated by this budget.
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