The following is the full text of a letter Dr. Uditha Herath, Secretary to the GMOA wrote to Salaries Commission Chairman Lionel Fernando:

"Until up to 2003 correction of salary anomaly has been done without an accepted basis. The practice hitherto has been to appoint a "ministerial Salary committee" at the behest of any trade union going on trade union action with the slogan, "Correct our Salary anomaly". Composition of these committees did not reflect any expertise on salary structuring and as such they relied much on past circulars and "biased information" provided to them, in making their recommendations to increase the salary of the category on protest. These unilateral salary increases no doubt stirred unrest in other categories resulting in a spate of trade union action that ultimately ended in loss of public sector productivity.

On 167 out of 365 days in 2003 one or other health category was on Trade union action - health sector being the worst.

At this juncture the GMOA pointed out that a "National Wage Policy" is the need of the day. We demanded a stop to "ad hoc salary corrections" and that the task be done by one fully fledged national level commission. The National Council for Administration was born thus. The NCA acted with commitment and much dedication over 24months analysing the existing situation and using accepted salary structuring principles and maintaining transparency to a reasonable extent. The Public administration circular 2006/01 was the result of their effort. Even though there was still scope for improvement this (P/A 2006/01) has defended the accepted principles on salary structuring. Instead of appreciating the good work done by the council members for the country and encouraging the NCA to rectify the rest of the deficiencies, the council itself was dismantled. Another salary committee was appointed to replace the NCA but with a lesser mandate forgoing the capacity of the NCA to address administrative improvements. With the complicated salary situation in 2003, the NCA had do work with a lot of patience amidst the aggressive trade unions, as such they could address only the basic salary structuring.

Today the new Commission needs to rectify the deficiencies in the basic salary structure and need to address the rest viz, allowances and privileges in order to harmonize the policy commensurate with the National wage policy. But with regret we note that ad hoc decisions are made once again on salaries, allowances and privileges of public officers. This no doubt will result in the same chaotic situation we witnessed in the unpleasant past. As such we request you to streamline the procedures with justice to each and every category and failing to do so, we reiterate, we will not hesitate to protest in a strong manner.