Pay and Performance – Public Sector where the Govt. went wrong!

This election gimmick of giving the Govt. Servants a Rs10K a month pay raise has worsened an already bad situation, and economically speaking resulted in an absolute disaster! Don’t forget that Mahinda Rajapaksa promised a Rs25K rise at the General Election thinking he will get the edge with that promise, so he also does not inherit any right to govern in future either. It is this type of tomfoolery that ruins any chance a Country can rise from the ashes to greatness.

Now every private sector employee is looking for an easy Govt. sector job, as they know it is less stress, less work and more pay than they get at present. Can you blame them?

What would have been better, a scheme where you pay for performance. One could put the top level civil servants on a 3 month refresher course run by foreign trainers, and if they pass from that promise a Rs100,000 a month pay raise. Then ONLY use them for the pool of Ministry secretaries, and you will have INSTANT RESULTS!

Then you task them with implementing a scheme where all the staff of the Ministry are put through the paces of a thorough evaluation. At that point the valuable  staff and the expendable staff will be immediately identified.

The valuable staff, will effectively be given some merit pay award that will incentivize their performance and the others will remain the same. Those who wish to leave Public Service will do so and others will remain.

Those remaining can be retrained into other public service positions more in line with their aptitudes, which will be of overall benefit to the public sector, and they may receive pay increases in those new positions as incentives to move.

What a WASTE OF AN OPPORTUNITY as notified above, which we lost through this hurried unthought through foolish high cost Public Sector pay rise that has actually bankrupted the Nation.

It is this sort of knee-jerk plan, that year in year out has led to the state of affairs in the Management of the Economy. Rajapakse borrowed his way out of any trouble and fooled the nation into thinking all was well. Now Wickremasinghe is spending his way out of any trouble, and fooling the nation that he can in fact do so without adding to the already crippling debt burden. 

It is the Country’s future that we are holding hostage at present, and no one seems to care a damn.

Only if people are rewarded for the work they do will that work be done well.