PE employees oppose govt decision

BY A STAFF REPORTER

Kathmandu, July 10: Once again employees at the most of the public enterprises have crossed the sword against the decision of the government to equalise the existing benefits with that of new provision according to the Budget estimates of the fiscal year 2000/2001.

And they have strongly warned the government not to intervene the matter of salary and facilities that they been receiving as per the institutional capacity.

Since the nature of work in the public enterprises is different from other, the government’s decision to whittle down the existing perks (if they exceed the minimum range of the budget estimates) is totally unjustifiable and impractical, they said. Speaking at a press meet organised by the Inter-Corporation Employees Association (ICEA) - National Committee they demanded the government to withdraw such decision.

‘If not, we will be compelled to stage protest programmes,’ said ICEA president Krishna Kumar Phuyal. The government has unnecessarily intervened the issue and aggravated the situation, he charged and said its consequence will be very negative. Instead of introducing new measures for the improvement of PEs performance, such decision has weakened the morality of all the employees he said.

In order to equalise the salary and perks in the government and government controlled organisations, the government had recently issued directives to all PEs asking them not to exceed the minimum range as mentioned by the Budget Estimates.

If PEs are to follow the directives, the existing facilities have to be cut off. In most of the PEs, their employees have been receiving more perks and salary.

The exisiting salary and perks of a junior officer in a PE like Nepal Telecommunications Corporations (NTC), Nepal Eletricity Authority (NEA) according to an official source is around Rs. 10,000/- per month whereas an officer in government office draws nearly Rs. 4200/-. According to new provision in the budget the basic salary of a section officer is 7500/-.

An official at the Ministry of Finance talking to this daily on telephone, the new provision helps maintain uniformity among employees working in the government institutions.

According to ICEA press release they had submitted a memorandum to the Prime Minister to review the decision regarding the salary. However they received no reply. This has made all the PEs employees to go against the government’s decision, the press release states.

The ICEA has also charged the government of debilitating the PEs to serve the vested interest of some people, it is said.

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