Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 1514426,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1514426/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 127,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Tharaka, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. George Murugara",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Speaker. I also rise to support the Special Motion that this House approves the appointment of commissioners to the SRC, a very important constitutional commission that cuts across the three Arms of Government. It has to work closely with the Parliamentary Service Commission, the Public Service Commission and the Judicial Service Commission. There is a notion out there that those commissions set salaries for their members or employees, which is not the case. It is the SRC that recommends to other commissions so that salaries can be harmonised to some extent, although this is not the case as required. We have had issues with the last or the outgoing SRC. There are complaints that it was not able to harmonise salaries even within individual Arms of Government, much to the detriment of workers. Unexplainable disparities exist when you compare what security forces earn. We, therefore, call upon this new incoming commission that is coming to work on harmonising salaries so that public servants can earn almost what can be comparable. Allow me to pick out one important topic: the Bottom-up Agenda. That is where we have junior-most government workers known as area managers in villages. They are not remunerated. We have passed numerous Motions and even laws to determine how those persons are to be remunerated. However, when those proposals are taken to the SRC, they are withheld on the basis that those people do not have formal education. I do not know where education is supposed to be the determinant. The commission is supposed to consider whether there is an educational requirement or not. We all know that the basic arms of the administrative government of this country are the people known as area managers. Those people do everything in the grassroots, including being police officers, judges, executioners, and everything else. I call upon the incoming commission to, without reservation, sit down and look into what should actually be paid to area managers in this country. They are out there doing an executive and excellent job for which no one recognises or remunerates them. It is purely because the SRC has refused, declined, or failed to set up guidelines that determine how much to remunerate those people. I speak for area managers. Thank you very much. I support."
}