President Maithripala Sirisena chaired the first meeting of the Special Presidential Commission to review Public Sector Salaries at the Presidential Secretariat, today (27), stated President’s Media Division.

During this meeting appointment letters to the members of the Commission were presented and the future plans of the Commission were reviewed.

The President appointed this Special Commission to make recommendations to provide solutions to minimize salary anomalies in the Public Service while focusing on the existing salary circulars in relation to the salaries and allowances of the Public Service. President Sirisena proclaimed the establishment of this Special Commission, according to a decision taken at the Cabinet on 14th August 2018.

The Commission is chaired by Mr. S. Ranugge and Mr. H.G. Sumanasinghe is the Secretary to the Commission. The other members of the Commission are; Mr. K.L.L.Wijeratne, Mr. T.P. Collure, Mr. C.P. Siriwardene, Mrs. Sudharma Karunaratne, Mr. Janaka Sugathadasa, Mrs. Dharani S. Wijethilake, Mr. Lalith R.de Silva, Mr. G.S. Edirisinghe, Mr.A.R. Deshapriya, Mrs. B.P.P.S. Abeygunarathne, Dr. Palitha Abeykoon, Mr. P. Thangamayil, Mr. S.D. Jayakody and Mr. M.C. Wickramasekara.

The duties and regulations of the Special Salaries Commission include, paying attention to the regulations of the current circular regarding the salaries and the allowances of the government service, proposing a systematic approach to solve the issues emerging when providing the proposed salary scale to the Sri Lanka Railway Department, supervisory management service, proposing solutions to reduce if any anomalies had taken  place in  the current circular of  the salary scales of the Railway Service, Health, Higher Education and Postal Services which appealed to increase the salaries and allowance, to provide recommendations to reduce variations of the salary scales emerged in the island-wide services and the services in which the salaries were increased recently and to identify anomalies in salary structure in order to reduce variations of the salary and allowances obtained by the employees holding similar responsibilities or holding similar qualifications working in governmental and semi –governmental institutions.

President Maithripala Sirisena instructed that the recommendations of the Commission should be provided before the 30th of October 2018. President pointed out that, through the recommendations it will be possible to obtain guidance for composing the future budget plans.

President Sirisena said that clearing the salary contradictions of the public sector is a long term issue and that he keeps faith on the new Commission to provide systematic solutions to solve the problem in the future.

President Sirisena offered his well wishes to the members of the Commission.

Secretary to the President Udaya R. Seneviratne and Secretaries of Ministries and officers were present in this event.