Pensioners’ appeal to new Finance Minister

It was heartening to hear the new Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa, at his first press conference, stating he was willing to discuss the longstanding issues affecting employees with trade union activists and organisations. He invited suggestions and representations from such groups, for negotiations, to settle matters amicably.

We hope the new Minister will be considerate enough to address the forgotten, neglected, postponed and delayed issues affecting workers, including the retired.

One such matter is the suspension of the salary increment scheduled to be paid with effect from January 2020 to the state employees who retired between 2016 and 2019; they number about 108,000. Therefore, this is an urgent problem that requires your kind attention because it has been dragging on for nearly two years. The aggrieved pensioners have made several attempts to bring their grievance to the attention of the authorities concerned, but in vain.

The problem affecting the workers who retired prior to 2016 and those after December 2019 have been solved, but this category of pensioners has been left out for no apparent reason. The subject of the suspension of this salary increment has been raised in Parliament many times by Opposition MPs, but the answers given by the relevant ministers are puerile, vague and evasive. Some say it has been suspended until salary anomalies are revised. Others say the amount of money to be paid is very high and the country cannot afford to pay it, given its economic problems in view of the pandemic, etc.

Will the Finance Minister allocate funds from the next budget for the payment of this suspended increment with arrears?

M. B. NAVARATHNE