Budget a broken promise - union

November 22, 2011, 10:08 pm , The Island,

The 2012 budget had not conferred the promised salary increase of 10 per cent to the state sector, the Public Service Trade Union Confederation said. "The budget has instead conferred a 10 per cent increase of allowances received by the state sector employees," Secretary to the confederation, Saman Rathnapriya said.

The incumbent regime had repeatedly broken the promise given to the state sector employees during the last presidential election regarding increasing their salaries by Rs. 2,500.

"Under the proposed budget only those who hold higher positions in the state sector would receive Rs. 2,500 in allowances while the lower level employees would receive a lesser amount," he said.

Rathnapriya also said that under the current proposals the doctors would receive an additional allowance of Rs. 2,500 and this discrepancy was a major injustice done to nurses and professions supplementary to medicine.

Meanwhile the Chief Minister of Sabaragamuwa province, Maheepala Herath said that allocating Rs. 40 billion for the fertilizer subsidy for the farmers and Rs. 15 billion to develop underdeveloped villages was an admirable move by the government.

"Reducing the poverty level in Sri Lanka from 15.5 per cent to 8.09 per cent at a time even the western super powers had faced an economic downturn is obviously a hint that Sri Lanka is on the verge of becoming the miracle of Asia," he said.

Issuing a statement the Secretary of the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna, Karunathilaka Dissanayake said that the budget would improve every aspect of the economic sector of the country providing concessions for all the ethnicities in Sri Lanka. (PH)