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Thursday, 7 February 2019 01:11 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Rejecting the Opposition charges for not taking action to reduce alleged high unemployment in the country, the Government yesterday held at Parliament that 20,000 graduates will be recruited under the Budget 2019.
State Minister of National Policies and Economic Affairs Niroshan Perera, shooting down the charges the Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa floated in the House, held that the recruitment of graduates was planned in stages and the first phase employed 5,100 and the second stage was not allowed to go through due to the Constitutional crisis.
“In a Cabinet paper our Government made room to recruit all graduates with an age limit of 45 years and to have no restriction of internal or external basic degree obtained by the candidate. We have not discontinued employing external graduates. But it was the President who promised to discontinue recruiting external graduates last year. But we have not executed that plan. During this year we are looking at recruiting 20,000 graduates,” confirmed the Minister.
“Last year the Government started to employ graduates in stages. This was done with Cabinet approval. As a result, the 5,100 graduates were recruited during the 1st stage. During the 2nd stage, 15,000 were to be recruited. This was stopped with the Constitutional crisis that came up on the 26th of October. I remind the Opposition Leader that he was in the Office of the Prime Minister for 51 days. He was the Prime Minister for 1224 hours last year. We are sad that he did not have time to consider the unemployed graduates but had time to hold Cabinet meetings and decide to stop the development programs such as the Gamperaliya,” said Minister Perera.
According to the Auditor General’s report, the Development Officer Service established during the Rajapaksa regime lacks recognition and has failed to encourage employees to work up to their expected standards due to various reasons.
“The Opposition Leader requests us to follow his method of providing employment for graduates during the Rajapaksa regime. According to a report from the Auditor General highlighting the period 2011 – 2015 on employment the recruits were not happy with their jobs and lacked ability. Auditor General also held that Development Service started anew lacked adequate monitoring and supervising to gain productivity. The Sri Lanka Development Service was not established systematically,” said the Minster.
The Auditor General in his report has identified the lack of a promotion system for the Development Service, not assigning relevant work for the Development Officers, lacking recognition, employment not being on par with the knowledge of the degree, lacking stationary and other material to perform duties, salary and allowances being inadequate, political involvement and problems from higher officers and no assessment of job or the work completed as key reasons for the lack of productivity in the new Service.
(AH)
