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| Thursday, 12 September 2002 |
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Letters | |
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Payment of Pensions to State Pensioners Many state employees used to get their monthly salaries paid to banks in close proximity to their places of work and on retirement requested the Director of Pensions to pay their pensions to that very same bank or to another bank situated within that city. Since of late under the guise of decentralization of the public administration, some state pensioners have found that their pension files have been transferred to the Divisional Secretariat which covers the place of residence of the pensioner and the pensioner has been requested to draw his pension through one of the banks that operate within that area on the basis of so called practical difficulties in paying the pension to the account of a particular bank through which the pensioner has hitherto received his pension but situated outside the area covered by the particular divisional secretariat. These practical difficulties mentioned can be visualized as being due to the appropriate Divisional Secretary not making arrangements with that bank to pay the pension. This is because the Divisional Secretary does not direct his staff to take appropriate action to pay the pension through the bank of his or her choice or is too weak to direct his staff resulting in the state pensioner not being paid to her or him the pension due. The practical difficulties can be categorized by the term inefficiency. Although, most of the Divisional Secretaries have undergone a year long training immediately on recruitment to the Sri Lanka Administrative Service before being posted to an executive assignment, mind you at state expense, they pamper to the dictates of their staff to cover up their shortcomings some of which are to hang around members of various legislative bodies for their personal gain, which I am sure has not been a subject of the training undergone by them. Some Divisional Secretaries consider themselves to be on par with Secretaries to Cabinet-Level Ministries and even ignore any advice from heads of departments in the belief that any such advice has to be addressed to them by Secretaries of Cabinet level Ministries and not even District Secretary of the district within which the particular division is situated. I hope that the Minister in charge of Public Administration takes into consideration the submissions stated herein and take the necessary steps to prevent the state pensioners being harassed by these officials. ALBERT P. WICKRAMASINGHA,-Kalutara North.
Conducting seminars and workshops for the teachers in service to help and guide them in the learning-teaching situation has been a thing of the past. These seminars on the textbooks have of course been of great importance in providing a successful career guidance to update the teacher with the latest techniques. In the previous year a series of seminars had been organized to introduce new series of textbooks. Yet certain textbooks have not been dealt with. Advanced Level Volume II textbook is a good example. The linguistic level of this book is fairly high for the students and it also carries certain new language expressions which are alien to the teacher himself. No teacher's guide is available for the text for any reference. It is in a seminar or in a workshop the teacher could only forward such problems and difficulties that he comes across in the learning-teaching situation in the classroom. GALAGAMAGE DAYANANDA,-Wathugedera. The government should be congratulated for taking steps to solve the ethnic conflict, to which the LTTE is responding now, peacefully. A lasting peace is the aspiration of everyone, and it is hoped that these negotiations will pave the way for unity, love and mutual understandings. KINGSLEY W. DIAS -Wellawatte The producers, financing persons, advertisers and other businessmen involved with television are engaged in a competitive spree to enhance their profits by taking undue advantage of the opportunities of our open market economy spurred by globalisation: there are no sufficient regulatory mechanisms in place to control the situation. The bosses in the entertainment business pander to the cheap thrills of the audience, but the masters of ceremonies are unwittingly oblivious of the poisonous impact on our society, especially on the minds of young persons in their formative stages of development. The noxious elements have to be eradicated without delay from the current programs so that there will be no room left for nefarious ideas to spring up in the minds of vulnerable persons. Despite repeated preachings emanating from the temples, churches and mosques of our country and the efforts of the social workers, there is no prospect of a decline in the gun culture and the criminal proclivities in the country. It is therefore submitted that the present two ministers in charge of the Media and Culture should give their earnest consideration to the matters raised above. D. KURUNERU-Moratuwa |
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