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Message: <blockquote data-quote="saraprobe" data-source="post: 4937477" data-attributes="member: 13914">June 17, 2009 (LBO) – Sections of Sri Lanka's bloated public sector are stealing peoples' money in the same corrupt manner as high profile private sector scams, a senior minister said.More than 140 state owned institutions are running at losses and have to be supported by the Treasury. Some workers don't even come to work,” deputy finance minister Sarath Amunugama said. This is more corrupt than Sakvithi, as both steal from the public. "The real story for journalist is state sector corruption and inefficiency.” Sakvithi Construction, an unregulated firm that took in deposits from hundreds of people collapsed last year with the owner fleeing the country. Amunugama, a onetime finance minister and now deputy finance minister, was speaking at the inauguration of a program for financial journalism training sponsored by Sri Lanka's Securities and Exchange Commission. Amunugama said employees Sri Lankan Insurance Corporation and Sri Lanka Transport Board had come back to work despite being retired and given golden handshakes. Sri Lanka has a bloated public sector, which has ballooned in recent years. While many public sector workers are twiddling their thumbs and taking salaries home, some are doing the bulk of the real work, and are underpaid for the work that they do. In 2004 in particular, graduates unemployable in productive sectors had run a successful campaign to get tax free lifetime jobs in the state sector after getting a free education at the expense of the people. Critics say that the propaganda supporting the effort was so effective, that the general public, including plantation and factory workers who ultimately had to produce goods and tax revenues to pay their salaries, did not regard it as a scam. Loss-making state enterprises are also kept alive by another powerful ideology. But now tax revenues are under pressure. In the first quarter total revenues fell 8.2 percent and tax revenues fell 4.8 percent. "All taxes revenues have dropped," said Amunugama. "The money is enough to pay salaries, pensions and foreign loan repayments and to keep the occasional foundation stone laying for buildings." In 2008 state workers took home 53.6 percent of tax revenues or 313.9 billion rupees as salaries and wages. In addition an estimated 10.6 billion rupees was lost in tax concessions given largely to state workers to import cars. Ordinary citizens outside the state have to pay exorbitant rates of tax to import cars.</blockquote>

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