The Hon. (Dr.) Anil Jayantha - Minister of Labour and Deputy Minister of Economic Development

¶ 01 Hon. Member, thank you. However, the approach and data you presented are not accurate; let me clarify.

¶ 02 Under Management Services Circular 01/2025, no public sector employee’s salary has been reduced. Answers to your questions:

¶ 03 1. The current value of the ETF is Rs. 564.38 billion. 2. Registered employers: 81,511. 3. Active registered members currently receiving benefits: 2.58 million.

¶ 04 The “salary reduction” narrative stems from several issues. When implementing 01/2025, it is essential that prior circulars—MSD 30/2006 and MSD 02/2016—had been correctly applied. However, the then ETF management and internal committees had not adhered to those circulars, creating major internal salary disparities. Specifically, significant gaps arose between employees recruited before 2013-05-01 and those hired after.

¶ 05 For example, Assistant Implementation Officer: one recruited on 2013-03-15 (before 2013-05-01) currently gets a basic salary of Rs. 57,616 (as at 31 March 2025), whereas a recruit on 2014-08-18 (after 2013-05-01) gets Rs. 42,500—a Rs. 15,110 difference over 17 months of service. Similar disparities exist across categories due to erroneous internal decisions.

¶ 06 Accordingly, before applying 01/2025, we had to rectify those past errors and minimize disparities. We grant increases in three stages due to budget constraints. In the present matter, 78 employees face a comparative reduction from March to April because disparities were corrected. Of the 820 employees, 560 were affected by disparities; among them, except for 78, all others received higher April salaries than in March. For 74 of the 78, the comparative reduction is less than Rs. 4,000. There is no case of Rs. 9,000 or Rs. 20,000 reductions. This is not a “cut” per se; it is the effect of correcting historical anomalies. If we carried forward the disparities, they would worsen and spread to other institutions. That is my response.