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by D. A. Rupasinghe

The Minister of Finance in his Budget Speech for the year 2004, has proposed a Voluntary Retirement Scheme for the Public Servants. The critics of the Budget have expressed reasons for and against this proposal. Some have expressed the view that this is a blind compliance of the instructions of International Lending Institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

My intention is to investigate how the proposal could be implemented without adverse repercussions to the social and economic life of the people of this country. The benefits and the advantages of the proposal as I observe, are as follows.

Benefits:

a. Frustration with the job and domestic problems causes absenteeism and lateness in work places. This situation results in neglect of duty; slackness in performances. Such employees can make use of the scheme without considerable loss of income.

b. The retirees will be able to satisfy all their needs as they will accrue availability of time and money.

c. The children, the old aged and the sick persons in the family can be better looked after without incurring of expenditure for employment of servants.

d. Knowledge and experience gathered while in employment could be utilized in their personal life or in the private sector and in social welfare activities.

e. The families of the retirees will be happy and contented.

f. Offsprings of happy and contended families will receive better care and parental treatment resulting in their becoming assets to the society.

Disadvantages:

a. Skilful and active employees who form the backbone of public service will exercise the option as they succeed in finding alternate employment in the private sector. A good proportion of trained personnel such as teachers, para medical categories, technical officers and vocationally competent personnel fall into this category. This will have a direct impact on day-to-day functions and a rapid drop in output.

b. The Government will be left with a large number of inefficient and slack and sometimes corrupt employees who are unable to find alternate employment elsewhere and will be a perpetual problem in the despatch of Government business.

c. Lack of efficient employees will adversely affect in output and will cause public dissatisfaction and loss of faith in Government.

d. If resulting vacancies have to be filled, it will be by recruiting row hands and they will take a considerable length of time to become useful employees. In addition, the Government will have to incur considerable expenditure in training of the new recruits.

e. The cost of this scheme will further increase pension and will become unbearable to the Government.

f. Increase in the 'idling lotus eaters' will increase addicts to liquor, narcotics and other nefarious activities, when they are unable to while away time and will become anti-social elements.

g. If the expected 300,000 retirements are realized within the next three years, the number of pensioners will exceed the number of employees. This will nullify all attempts to reduce recurrent expenditure.

h. Those retiring will enter into employment in the private sector that will adversely affect employment opportunities of young persons who complete their Secondary and University Education. Finally, the parents will be compelled to bear the burden of sustaining the unemployed educated youth. This will aggravate the already existing problem.

i. The retirees as well as the actual employees, if followed equal salaries and benefits, serving officers will get frustrated, demotivated and will lead to depreciate their output and will adversely affect the achieving of aspirations of the public.

On examination of pros and cons of this proposal, it is clear that the Government is at a disadvantage. The general public is bound to feel the brunt of the decision, if the scheme is implemented without consideration of maintenance of public service efficiently. In the last Census, Sex Ratio has increased in most of the Districts. The females harvest better benefits of the educational facilities.

If more females exercise the retirement option, more females will get the opportunity to enter into employment. Therefore, the pressure caused by unemployed educated females can be reduced to some extent.

The public service is already a heavy burden on the economy. Widespread corruption and inefficiency have become insurmountable problems of the society. Some of the causes and effects for inefficiency in the public service are attributable to the following factors. a. Absenteeism:

Upto the time of marriage, contribution and output of a female employee is in no way less than that of a male officer of the same category. With the marriage, devotion of a female officer changes. She is compelled to be faithful to the husband, manage household and look after the old aged parents. It will not be humanly reasonable to ignore these factors. Eventually, the results will be absenteeism, lateness to work and diminition of interest in official work.

b. Unstable families:

With the birth of children, the situation becomes worse. Family responsibilities increase. The medical view is that the children should be breast-fed at least for six months from their birth. Breast feeding mothers need to sustain themselves with better food, healthy environment and sound mental conditions.

c. Lack of proper domestic aids:

With the exodus of females of relatively poor families to the middle-east for employment and the opening up of employment opportunities specially in the garment industry, finding a suitable domestic aid has become a serious problem. Finding a domestic helper for baby sitting and household work even for a monthly salary of Rs. 5,000 with food is difficult. If there are two children, at least two servants are required. This situation is unmanageable for lower and middle level public servants.

d. Lack of motherly care:

Lack of motherly care at the formative age produces psychologically unhealthy children who could easily be misdirected for anti-social activities. The social cost of this situation is extremely high and leads to rapid degeneration of society.

Under the foregoing circumstances, it is proposed that the Voluntary Retirement Scheme be allowed only for female employees in the middle and lower levels in the state services who have not been provided with specialised training and who count at least ten years of pensionable service.

This will enable more educated and unemployed youth to enter employment. The female employees who exercise the retirement option will accrue the following benefits.

a. They will be able to stay at home after a relatively short spell of employment. This is extremely conducive when their physical and mental strengths are considered.

b. They can get a reasonably satisfactory income by way of pension.

c. The need for domestic aids could be reduced or completely eliminated.

d. The offsprings can be brought up with motherly care and affection which will ultimately result in healthy society.

The Government will accrue the following benefits.

a. More employment opportunities could be provided to unemployed educated youth.

b. Over exploitation of females could be avoided.

c. With better managed homes and healthy rearing of children, a better society can be expected.

d. Financial commitments could be controlled.

It is hoped that these observations will receive due consideration of the Government and all those who are concerned about the welfare of the people and development of our country.

(The writer is a retired Assistant Director of Management Services Division of the Ministry of Public Administration).

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