Courtesy Adaderana

The President’s Media Division (PMD) says the facilities provided to state ministers have been brought under the management of public expenditure.

Accordingly, President Ranil Wickremesinghe has emphasized that all authorities should make every effort to utilize public funds spent by the government in a frugal and efficient manner, taking into account the severe economic difficulties that the government has to face in the current economic and social climate of the country.

The Secretary to the President, Saman Ekanayake has given instructions to all secretaries of the ministries on Friday (Sep 09) to make special arrangements for the management of public expenditure.

The President’s Secretary has issued the following instructions to all ministerial secretaries informing that the state ministers appointed by the President with effect from Thursday (Sep 08) should act according to those terms while carrying out their duties:

• A separate expenditure head is not allocated for state ministries. Secretaries will not be appointed for those government ministries and the most senior additional secretary should be employed among the additional secretaries of those ministries to facilitate the work of the state ministers under each scope.

• The ministry to which the relevant state ministers have been appointed should meet the staffing requirements from the currently approved staff. Requests for creation of new posts should not be submitted to the Department of Management Services.

• For operating the offices, facilities should be provided within the office premises where the relevant cabinet ministry is currently operating.

• Only the private secretary of the support staff of the state ministers is entitled to an official vehicle, and the overtime and composite allowances of the private secretary’s official driver should be handled in accordance with the circulars issued by the Ministry of Public Administration, Home Affairs, Provincial Councils and Local Government.

• Only 02 common vehicles should be reserved for other officers of the support staff. Other vehicles in the vehicle pool of the ministry should not be used for the needs of the said officials.

• Management Assistant, Development Officer, Office Assistant and Driver are to be selected only from among the permanent civil servants. Those drivers can receive monthly overtime allowance subject to a maximum of 150 hours and their monthly composite allowance entitlement is subject to a maximum of 08 days..

• The communication allowance shall be provided to the private secretary, coordination secretary, press secretary and public relations officer subject to the approved maximum limit, and the communication allowance shall include data usage, international telephone charges, monthly fixed charges, taxes and other charges.

• The support staff should not be provided with mobile phones at government expense.

Accordingly, this order has been issued revising the provisions mentioned in the letters from time to time by the President’s Secretary on the instructions of the President under CA/01/17/01 and the letters issued on May 14, 2010 under the title of Public Expenditure Management.