In Parliament:

No talks with IMF to prune public service - Minister

Uditha Kumarasinghe and Irangika Range

Public Administration and Home Affairs Minister Dr. Sarath Amunugama told Parliament yesterday that there were no discussions with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on truncating the public service.

The Minister said no such request came up during talks with the IMF.

Dr. Amunugama was responding to a question by UNP MP Ravi Karunanayake as to whether the recent gazette notification issued by the Public Service Commission (PSC) was a sequel to demands made by the IMF before granting the loan.

The Minister said the committee to amend the establishments code had been appointed by the PSC in 2006.

The gazette notification was the result of the consideration of the committee report and there was no plans for talks with the IMF at that time.

He said the PSC was appointed to amend the establishments code which had been there for the past 30 years.

Therefore, the PSC, took measures to publish this code as a gazette notification recently and there was no curtailment of the public service through this gazette.

The PSC had amended two clauses of the code and they were related to the efficiency bar. “I categorically stated that the Government has no intention to curtail the rights of public servants through the amendments of these two clauses.”