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Sacked public service officers regain pensions through House Petition Committee, says PSC
View(s):The Public Service Commission (PSC) has noted that there is a growing tendency among certain public service officers who have lost their jobs, to make appeals after retirement, to the Petitions Committee of Parliament seeking pension rights, ignoring the stringent punishment imposed on them for wrongdoing.
“Most of such cases are appeals laid before the Supreme Court, following scrutiny by the PSC, and were subject to dismissal, in view of the inability to concede to such requests,” the PSC noted in its Report for 2011-2014.
It warned that there will be an adverse impact on the disciplinary procedure of the public service, if the claims prayed for in these appeals are granted, thus giving rise to a bad precedent.
This 2011-2014, nine-member Commission headed by Vidyajothi Prof Dayasiri Fernando, was the first to be set up following the passing of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution.
During the term of the Commission between May, 2011 and May, 2014, the PSC handled over 38,700 appointments, promotions and related activities and over 1,550 disciplinary matters.
In its report, the Commissioner disclosed that in carrying out disciplinary procedures against public officers, the PSC was, at times, compelled to put on hold its decision-making process on individual officers with regards to disciplinary matters, mainly due to delays from various ministries and departments in tendering observations, recommendations and reports called for from them in this connection.
The Commission also noted there were many instances of incomplete reporting on disciplinary matters.
“Scrutiny of incomplete reports received by the Commission revealed that the area of knowledge of the Government‘s disciplinary procedure and the management of such matters are at a low ebb, and it has given rise to a surfeit of shortcomings,” the Commission said. It added that, if Government departments and ministries are alert about their personnel who are responsible for managing disciplinary matters, and detail them for streamlined training on an annual basis, then the PSC will also reap the benefits, while overcoming such shortcomings.
In cases where the PSC had delivered orders in connection with public service officers breaching standard norms of conduct expected from them, the Commission said it acted in a consistent manner, following careful and deep analysis of all necessary information.
Commission Chairman Prof Dayasiri Fernando noted that during the period 2011-2014, the workload was that of five years, as the PSC did not function from 2009-2011. However, by the time the terms of the PSC lapsed in May this year, except for some appeals which required further documents/recommendations from the relevant ministries, the rest of the backlog had been cleared.
The other members of the Commission were Palitha M. Kumarasinghe P.C., Mrs Sirimavo A. Wijeratne, S.C. Manapperuma, Ananda Seneviratne, N.H. Pathirana, S. Thillanadarajah, M.D.W. Ariyawansa and A. Mohamed Nahiya.
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