Cabinet approves bonuses for corporations' staff

By Uditha Jayasinghe

Bonuses for public servants were approved by the Cabinet, said Cabinet Spokesman Minister Keheliya Rambukwella.

The proposal made by the President in his capacity as the Minister of Finance and Planning for the payment of bonus to the employees of Government Corporations and fully-owned Government companies for 2011 as was paid in 2010 was approved by the Cabinet.

Accordingly, employees of such institutions which have earned profits will be paid Rs. 10,000 and employees who work in profit-making ventures that are paying performance incentives will be paid Rs. 7,500.

Employees of the loss-making corporations and Government owned companies will be paid only Rs. 1,000. However, the employees working in loss-making ventures which reduced losses compared to last year will be paid Rs. 2,000.  There is an excessive number of loss-making State Owned Enterprises (SOEs), collectively estimated to lose around two per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  In 2010 the Treasury had to give Rs. 30.5 billion (0.5 per cent of GDP) from taxes extracted from the people to support operations of State enterprises and by end 2009, had given a total of Rs. 189 billion as bank guarantees to prop them up.

These amounts are expected to have grown in 2011 and even though a separate ministry was established to develop public private partnerships to turn around many of these companies, it is still at inception point.  It is estimated that there are around one million public servants in Sri Lanka with many thousands employed in corporations and companies.