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Cutting down recruitment to reduce expenditure: Govt. yet to categorise quotas and sectors

18 Sep 2021

  • Permission only for essential cadre for respective institutions
  • Finance Ministry has not identified sectors for recruitment restrictions
  • Recruitment process not halted for next year: Public Admin Ministry
  • Recruitment permitted for ‘Rata Wenuwen Weda’ prog. and military
By Maheesha Mudugamuwa The Government has decided to limit public sector recruitment until the end of the year, as authorities attempt to reduce state expenditure in the wake of dwindling earnings while trying to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. As government revenue was hampered while expenditure increased unexpectedly due to the re-emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic this year, the Government recently decided to limit state sector recruitment to cut down its expenses for next year, The Sunday Morning learnt. Accordingly, only the recruitment of essential cadres for state institutions to carry out their day-to-day activities for the next year will be allowed, while non-essential recruitment would not be promoted for the rest of this year and next year, it is learnt. However, the Government is yet to identify the limitations and the sectors to which recruitment restrictions would be applied. Notably, the nature of the recruitments as well as its urgency will be reviewed prior to the issuance of the gazette. ‘No blanket approach’ Speaking to The Sunday Morning, Ministry of Public Services, Provincial Councils, and Local Government Secretary J.J. Rathnasiri said the confirmation of the appointments already made to the state sector would not be affected and clarified that the entire recruitment process would not be halted for next year. “There is no blanket approach for the freezing of state sector recruitment; instead, only essential recruitment will be done,” he said. When asked about the existing vacancies in the state institutions, Rathnasiri noted that recruitment in order to fill vacancies that were essential to the continuation of the work of the institution would be considered. “Even though there are vacancies, we will review the type of vacancy. For instance, a vacancy that arises as a result of an employee retiring would not always be one that is essential to fill immediately,” he explained. The Ministry Secretary further clarified that the Government had not restricted recruitment for next year completely. However, in a circular issued by the Treasury Secretary on 28 July 2021, on the guidelines for the preparation of annual budget estimates for 2022 within the medium budgetary framework 2022-2024, all secretaries to ministries, state ministries, chief secretaries of provincial councils, heads of departments, and chairmen of corporations and statutory boards were informed that financial provisions would not be allocated for new recruitments, as new recruitment would be discouraged for next year. Other than the provisions for rates already approved, overtime and allowances should not be included in the estimates for any other type of overtime or allowances. In the context that a large number of new recruitments to the public service were done during the last few years, technological tools are of extensive usage, and online methods were initiated with the pandemic situation, overtime payments should be estimated deviating from the traditional methods by reviewing the requirements, the circular stated. The Sunday Morning understands that the recruitment restrictions announced by the Ministry of Finance were not applicable to the “Rata Wenuwen Weda” (Work for the Country) project that was envisaged in the “Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour” national policy framework by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in September last year. Commenting on the graduate recruitment programme of the Government, Ministry Secretary Rathnasiri noted that the recruitments that were already made would be confirmed this year. According to him, the Government is in the process of absorbing another 60,000 graduates into the public sector following reviews upon completion of their one-year probation period. Accordingly, the one-year probation period would be completed this month, and following the completion of the probation period, the graduates would be made permanent employees of the public sector. It was stated earlier that at the end of the one-year training period, appointees would be employed in institutions directly related to the rural sector, such as rural and estate schools, the Department of Agrarian Services, regional irrigation offices, Department of Wildlife Conservation, government Ayurvedic hospitals, rural hospitals, dispensaries, and the Department of Minor Export Crops. Meanwhile, the Sri Lanka Army also commenced its yearly recruitment process this year. When contacted by The Sunday Morning, Army Commander Gen. Shavendra Silva said: “Every year, we have recruitment drives and we have not been able to make recruitments for the last two years because of the pandemic situation.” He said that even though the Army had many vacancies, it wouldn’t be able to fill them all and therefore would target filling 6,000-7,000 vacancies at the moment. Increased public sector expenditure In the meantime, many other government sector vacancies were also gazetted during the past few months. As per the Public Sector Employment Survey conducted by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), total public sector employment was increased to 1.528 million by the end of 2020 compared to 1.467 million in 2019. The CBSL also stated that the nominal wages of public sector employees, as measured by the annual average change in the public sector wage rate index (2016=100), increased by 9.2% in 2020 compared to 2019. This increase was due to the addition of a new non-pensionable monthly interim allowance of Rs. 2,500 with effect from 1 July 2019, and the final tranche of the special allowance and interim allowance to the basic salary with effect from 1 January 2020. Accordingly, real wages of public sector employees increased by 2.9% in 2020 compared to 2019. Meanwhile, the Treasury’s Fiscal Management Report 2020-21 stated that in the first eight months of 2020, government expenditure was Rs. 1,883.7 billion, of which Rs. 1,670.4 billion was recurrent expenditure and Rs. 213.3 billion was capital and net lending. Total expenditure on personal emoluments for public servants, including provincial council (PC) employees, was increased by 15.7% to Rs. 516.3 billion in the first eight months of 2020, compared to Rs. 446.4 billion in the same period of 2019. The central government’s contribution to PC salaries increased by 32.6% to Rs. 153.8 billion in the first eight months of 2020 from Rs. 115.9 billion in the same period of 2019. The pension payments increased by 11.5% to Rs. 160.1 billion in the first eight months of the period compared to Rs. 143.5 billion in the same period of 2019. When contacted, Deputy Secretary to the Treasury R.M.P. Rathnayake told The Sunday Morning that the Ministry of Finance had not identified any special sectors for which recruitment should be restricted. According to him, the Ministry had informed all state institutions to cut down on additional expenditure considering the current financial situation, especially for the next few months until the next budget is presented.


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