NEVER BLAME THE ORDINARY PUBLIC

Despite the current economic situation in the country demanding a drastic revolutionary change, the budget proposals presented for the year 2022 by Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa on Friday are not going to change anything in a manner that would at least arrest the current trends of sagging revenue and mounting expenditure of the government. It did not suggest solutions to the foreign exchange crisis the country is currently faced with or the looming food crisis stemming from the recent ban on agro-chemicals. 

Many highlights of the budget, such as the reduction in fuel allowance to the Parliamentarians and the extension of their tenure for them to be entitled for the pension might have been be popular steps, but those steps seem Lilliputian, compared to the magnitude of the problem that the government has to address.

The Finance Minister seems to draw ire from the public sector trade unions for his comment that the sector was a huge burden to the country. However, at the same time, public sector employees might have rejoiced over his announcement that their retirement age would be raised by another five years. In fact, the raising the retirement age is also an attempt to put off the problem for five years instead of resolving it. On the other hand, it might lead to the creation of another social issue as well. 

Given the current predicament faced by the government due to the continuing economic downturn, the Finance Ministry wants apparently to abstain from allowing new recruitments to the public institutions, as the retiring employees and the new recruits have to be paid pensions and salaries respectively at the same time. The only way to do it is to extend the services of the current employees of those institutions. These institutions, through this move might continue to have the expertise and the experience of their most senior employees but the extension should be short owing to their old age. On the other hand, this move would create unrest among youth aspiring to get into the public sector. 

One would wonder whether it was qualitatively or quantitatively that the minister adjudged the public sector when he said that the public sector was a burden. Since he was dealing mainly with the revenue and expenditure and his proposal to extend the retirement age, one has to conclude that he had meant the quantity and not the quality. As in the cases of local revenue collapse and the foreign exchange crisis, it was the successive governments including the current administration that are to blame for this burden, as the public sector has been considered throughout by the politicians as a dumping yard for their supporters.

It must be recalled that the government announced a programme to provide employment to 50,000 graduates and 100,000 low-income earners in the state institutions just before the last year’s Parliamentary election which was stopped by the Election Commission. However, the Presidential Secretariat announced on August 14 last year - nine days after the election - that the new recruits would report for work on September 2. Needless to say that it was the government’s responsibility to generate employment by way of new projects or extension or expansion of existing projects and sectors. However, here, these 150,000 men and women were absorbed into already crowded institutions, without the expansion of the economy.  

On the other hand, despite many talented and dedicated employees in the public sector, it is as a sector not popular among the masses owing to its lethargy and the corruption on the part of the higher-ups of it. Six weeks into his Presidency, on December 26, 2019, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa paid a visit to the office of the Department of Motor Traffic (Registrar of Motor Vehicles) in Werahera, in order to inspect the efficiency of the institution and he had to criticize the officials in the presence of the public, after seeing the appalling situation there. Again on December 31, in the same year, the President, during a discussion with the officials of the Ministry of Public Transport stressed that inefficiency in the state sector which has resulted in creating displeasure among the public should come to an end, before the end of his tenure.

Parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) had on February 8, 2017 pinpointed Rs 110 billion losses incurred to the State from 15 public institutions between May 1 and August 31, 2016 (within four months). Similar or even bigger corrupt practices in the public sector had been exposed by the COPE and Public Account Committee (PAC) of Parliament before and after this. The famous VAT fraud, the Central Bank bond and the recent sugar scam are three startling cases in point, in respect of corruption in State institutions. Therefore, the public sector has throughout been qualitatively and quantitatively a burden on the public coffers, but it is the politicians and with their patronage, the high ranking officials are to blame, and not the poor ordinary employees.