Director general of trade union affairs of the president, Saman Ratnapriya has stressed the need to restructure state entities if they are to provide an efficient and effective service.
He was addressing a seminar at the Finance Ministry yesterday (26) for trade unionists, journalists and civil society activists on the importance of reforming state agencies.
He claimed that countries in which the state did businesses were having a backward economy, while it was the other way around for countries without state enterprises.
Giving an example locally, Ratnapriya said the state had to pump Rs. 333 billion for the maintenance of the railways during a 10 year period upto 2020.
Nearly Rs. 30 billion a year could have been saved had the railways department been a profit-earning entity, he added.
Answering a question, he said the government had no intention of restructuring the health and education sectors.
The president has said that a further one per cent of the GDP would be allotted for the health sector from next year’s budget, he added.
