Christmas dawns early for Lankan co-ops

The cooperative sector of Sri Lanka yesterday tasted sweet success for its silent efforts when its employees were given a long-awaited pay hike. The sector also received its first human resource management manual. “The good news is their salaries have been increased,” said Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen. 

Minister Bathiudeen was addressing the launch event of a new handbook on Salaries and Recruitment Procedures of Cooperatives at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute yesterday. The comprehensive new manual sets out the increased salary structures for employees of national level cooperatives managed by the Government. Similar salary increases and human resource procedures for each provincial council co-op are to be introduced in the future. According to the increment given to national level coops yesterday, the lower grade basic salary of Rs. 9,000 has been increased to Rs. 14,200 while the higher grade basic salary of Rs. 38,000 stands to increase to Rs. 51,100.

“The employees of our cooperative sector have been contributing to Sri Lanka’s development greatly. It is time we recognise their contribution. The good news is their salaries have been increased,” said Minister Bathiudeen. 

“The Cooperative Payments and Recruitment handbook launched today is another reward for them. The handbook shows the newly revised salaries for our cooperative employees. After nine years this is the first time that the cooperative salaries have been increased since 2008. I thank all cooperative employees for their great contribution to the country.”

At present there are 14,454 cooperatives active across Sri Lanka’s nine provinces. They exist in various sectors - production, services, SMEs, women’s development, rural banking, insurance and farming. These 14,454 cooperatives employ 46,000 people. The Lankan cooperatives assets and savings base totals Rs. 418,416 million ($ 2.8 b).