Following Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s budget speech last month, proposing that temporary and contract workers who work for more than 180 days in one job be made permanent employees; it has been announced that nearly 5,000 temporary workers at the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) will be absorbed into the permanent workforce with effect from 1 December 2014, CEB Chairman W.B. Ganegala told the Sri Lankan Daily News. 

Mr Ganegala explained: “Their services are essential to the CEB. But their jobs were very unstable. On most occasions they couldn’t even draw a sufficient salary for their services. The CEB paid their salaries to the manpower company and sometimes these workers didn’t even have an idea about the company they were attached to.”

The company had agreed to absorb these workers into the permanent workforce in 2009, but as Mr Ganegala explained: “That effort failed. Following the proposal made by [current] President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his budget speech to make all those who worked more than 180 days in government departments, corporations, and statutory bodies on a temporary or contract basis be made permanent, the CEB has taken measures to absorb these workers into the permanent cadre of the CEB.”

He said these workers will be absorbed to the permanent workforce according to the Scheme of Recruitment considering their qualifications: “This is a good decision taken by the government as around 5,000 families depend on these workers. There will be no additional cost to the CEB as the CEB has already paid these workers’ salaries.”