New insurance scheme for those employed abroad - Minister Peiris

It is the duty and responsibility of the Government as well as its officials to look into the needs and problems of those Sri Lankans employed outside the country and find speedy solutions to them, specially as they constitute a segment of the population that earned the largest slice of Sri Lanka's total foreign exchange earnings which had even surpassed that brought in by the garments sectors, said External Affairs Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris who also highlighted the need to offer those who sought foreign employment a high degree of training and the establishment of a comprehensive insurance scheme for them.

He was speaking at a meeting held at Ratnapura after the laying of the foundation stone for the regional office building of the Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau which was being put up at a cost of Rs 70 million.

Minister Prof. Peiris praised the decision by the President to bring the Foreign Employment Bureau within the authority of the Ministry of External Affairs as that would better facilitate the use of resources in our embassies in those countries and help launch a streamlined coordination program for the greater benefit for the country.

He said that the need of the hour as far as foreign employment was concerned, was the commencement of a broad and wide-ranging training program that would offer high quality training to those who seek foreign employment.

He said that compared with Filipinos who were highly trained as a whole, Sri Lankans tended to get only about half the salary of the former. With regard to the implementation of a comprehensive insurance scheme for those employed abroad, Prof. Peiris said that he had already discussed the matter with Gamini Senarath, the Chairman of the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation, who had kindly agreed to his proposal not with a motive for profit but as a service to the country.

He thanked John Seneviratne, Public Administration and Home Affairs Minister for providing the land on which the new regional office building was to be constructed and said that the new office would facilitate a lot of foreign employment-related work in the region.

Minister John Seneviratne said that several hundreds of thousands had found employment abroad and their remittances amounted to nearly 33 billion rupees. This income approximated what was being spent for the total import of petroleum into the country. He hoped that with the establishment of the new regional office, foreign employment aspirations of the people of Ratnapura would be fulfilled and he thanked Prof. Peiris for the endeavour undertaken.

After the stone-laying ceremony Prof. Peiris inspected the training facilities available at the Ratnapura office.