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| Monday, 19 January 2004 |
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by Uditha Kumarasinghe The Water Supply and Drainage Board Trade Unions Joint Committee yesterday warned that the proposed amendment to the National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWS&DB) Act scheduled to be presented before Parliament on January 20 would cause immense hardship to consumers and NWS&DB employees. The Government through this amendment is attempting to create laws required to vest the generation and distribution of drinking water resource to the private sector. In addition, the maintenance of rural water schemes is to be vested to Local Government institutions or private sector contractors. This will never provide benefits to consumers or NWS&DB employees, Joint Trade Union Committee Joint Convenor Upali Ratnayake told a news conference yesterday. He said in terms of the present NWS&DB Act there was no room to vest water resource with the private sector. "With industrialisation and environmental pollution, a huge demand and market will be created for pure drinking water. Therefore, the Government is formulating plans to vest the authority for providing drinking water to foreign racketeers", Ratnayake said. The joint trade union committee will demonstrate opposite the NWS & DB Head Office, Ratmalana tomorrow at 12.30 pm to protest against the Government's move to privatise the NWS&DB. The trade union has also requested Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapakse and the Opposition Parliamentary group to raise a voice in Parliament regarding this issue, he said. "According to the existing NWS&DB Act, water is considered a common resource. But this proposed amendment will vest this common resource with certain private sector owners. However, all the non-profit making water supply schemes in rural areas will be vested with the Local Government institutions or other community organisations," he said. Ratnayake said a large number of NWS&DB water supply schemes had been vested in the Local Government institutions earlier. "Due to lack of expertise to maintain these projects, the supervision was again vested in the NWS&DB. The Government's decision to hand over these projects to Local Government institutions will push them further into the dumps," he said. The revised salary structure for NWS&DB employees recommended by the B.C. Perera Committee Report has given a mere five per cent salary increase to lower grade employees. But the proposed salary structures have given 80 to 90 per cent salary increases to higher grade employees. This has led to increase in the salaries of higher grade employees from Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 25,000, he said. The NWS&DB authorities attempt to point out that they have given an attractive salary increment to employees by adding the allowance given to employees to their basic salary. However, employees could obtain this same salary even in 2001, Ratnayake said. When attempts were made by the trade union to protest against this move, the NWS&DB management obtained a restraining order from the Mount Lavinia District Court to prevent the trade union action. Trade unions are making arrangements to submit facts to court to withdraw this restraining order, he said. |
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