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| Wednesday, 22 September 2004 |
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Big boost to support SMEs in the provinces : Govt allocates over Rs. 33 b on public investment in maiden Budget by Lionel Yodhasinghe
The Government has allocated over Rs.33 billion on public investment in its maiden budget thereby giving a big boost to rural infrastructure to support the SMEs in the provinces expecting growth in employment for the youth and increased exports, said Finance Ministry Secretary Dr. P. B.Jay- asundera. As this year's budget is long-term and development oriented, other sectors such as health, education, housing and small energy projects have been put on focus while the National Poverty Alleviation and Growth Program was continuing to pass on benefits to the masses. Addressing a select group of business journalists at the fortnight meeting at the Finance Ministry last week Dr. Jayasundera said the Government will utilise the donors' fund for US$800 to $850 to support these target projects proposed in the budget to be presented in Parliament in mid November. Dr. Jayasundera said that public servants salaries would be increased in a form of value addition (incentives) to recognise their commitment, productivity and efficiency. He said that the Tissa Devendra Permanent Salary Commission looks into all anomalies in various cadres to redress the present public servants' salary grievances while the Lalith Weeratunga Committee works on overall improvement strategies of the public sector. Answering journalists Dr. Jayasundera said the public sector is not overstaffed but is lacking cadres in certain sections. This has slowed down work in some Departments such as Inland Revenue. Projecting the number of public sector staff, Dr. Jayasundera said that of the 850,000 public sector staff, 300,000 are in the armed forces, 250,000 in the health and education sectors, 70,000 are law enforcement officers and the balance is in all other sectors. They are also without proper training and quite old. Young and dynamic manpower is a must today to run an efficient and productive public sector and the new recruitment would be a solution to this, he said. With all these changes and the Government's task to depoliticise public institutions the public sector would retrieve its lost prestige and efficiency to serve the people better, he said. Verifying permanency of the new posts to undergraduate recruits, Dr. Jayasundera recollected his days at the Central Bank and said that though the posts are permanent all of them should follow the required training to assert themselves to undertake certain responsibilities in the particular sections. Dr. Jayasundera said that not only new recruits but also many others in the current public sector service should be given some training if their productivity and efficiency is to improve. "Some of our officers have never had any training. In Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore public servants are given at least a three-week training on Human Resources and modern day context annually. Therefore this Government has plans to train public servants at least on some modern day context. Dr. Jayasundera said efficiency of revenue collection should be maximised and efforts would be taken to consolidate revenue collection, as it is a key issue today. Steps have already been taken to modernise the Inland Revenue Department and a large revenue collection is expected during the year, he said. He said it is a welcome sign to hear that some factions are on the lookout for substitutes to energy as the world oil prices are constantly going up. If the Government does not adjust local prices to the increasing oil prices and continue to subsidise, people would never look for alternatives. The Government's initiatives to adjust the fuel prices to the world oil prices have shown positive signs as the country is now looking for alternative energy sources such as small hydro power projects, solar system, bio gas and many are compelled to save energy as a result, he said. The Budget deficit would be maintained at 8 percent and the Government has no intention to increase it but as the budget is macro thinking, the deficit could be higher than the target. However, the increase is due to capital investment which would revive the construction sector, tourism, SMEs, export, irrigation, roads, electricity and telephone sectors as public investment are targets in this budget, he said. He said that the government has no intention to compete with the private sector on local borrowings and as a result interest rates would not be increased. |
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