President increased public sector strength to 1.2 m

Nadira Gunatilleke

Since postal voting commences today, the Opposition has started to shed crocodile tears on behalf of the public servants. It was the UNP which killed and abused public servants since the 1952 Hartal. It is the UPFA led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa which increased the public service up to 1.2 million. This means there is a public servant for every 20 Sri Lankans, Youth Affairs Minister Dullas Alahapperuma said.

Minister Alahapperuma was addressing the weekly UPFA press briefing at the Mahaweli Centre Auditorium, Colombo yesterday.

He said that the UNP killed and sacked public servants in 1980.

“In 2001 the UNP planned to stop their pension and cut down the public service by 50 percent. They did all these in public. It was not a secret. There are only three years in the Sri Lankan history where no Sri Lankan was absorbed into the public service,” he said.

“That three years (2001 – 2004) was when the regime of the present Opposition leader was in power. If he won the Presidential Election in 2005, today Sri Lanka would have had only two state institutions. They are the judiciary and the prison,” Alahapperuma said.

According to the Minister, President Rajapaksa and the UPFA Government did not bow to the International aid agencies which demanded to cut down the public service.

He led the country with a strong backbone and strengthened the public service. The bond between the UPFA Government and the public service is something that is unbreakable, Alahapperuma said.

”It gave employment to 42,000 graduates. All these employment was given only through competitive examinations. The number of school teachers increased up to 225,000. Another 4,000 employment opportunities are to be given to the youth shortly. The minimum salary of a public servant was increased up to Rs 11,700. The

unemployment decreased to 5.9 percent and it was around 12 percent during the UNP regime,” he said.

According to late Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake, the UNP registered the same vote and had a fake vote base of 400,000.

”Now they cannot use that because of the use of Identity cards in voting. Now the UNP hangs on to anything. But it cannot use the same election promises or the accusation twice because the Government solve all issues as soon as they point it out”, the Minister added.