Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya told Parliament on Thursday that work to overhaul public sector salaries and pensions is under way — and disclosed that the commission doing it has so far cost the state nothing.
She said steps are being taken to sustainably manage the salary and pension policies of public officers and pensioners, and to provide solutions for salary anomalies that have gone unresolved for years, Hiru News reported.
What the commission has been asked to do
The Public Officers’ Salary and Pension Commission was appointed through Extraordinary Gazette Notification No. 2494/05 of 22 June 2026. Its main responsibilities, the Prime Minister said, are to recommend structural reforms across the entire public service, forecast future requirements against new technological and global trends, and set out strategies for building a citizen-centric, ethical and accountable public service.
Under that gazette it must submit its report and recommendations to the President within a year — by late June 2027. Proposals, opinions and requests are already being received from trade unions, organisations and the public, she said, and arrangements are being made to give the President a quarterly progress report as those submissions are studied.
What it has cost so far
No money was spent on maintenance services or asset purchases for the commission up to 18 September 2026, the Prime Minister said, and nothing was paid out in salaries and allowances up to that date either.
That changes this month. She said approximately Rs. 508,988 is scheduled to be paid in salaries and allowances for four officers of the commission when September 2026 salaries are released — an average of roughly Rs. 127,000 each.
Context
The commission is a 15-member body chaired by retired ministry secretary Ashoka Peiris, with Nalaka Disanayake as secretary. It opened its office at Malalasekara Mawatha, Colombo 7 and began work on 4 August, created from a proposal in President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s 2026 Budget.
Pay grievances have driven repeated industrial action this year, including an indefinite strike by RDA engineers and a protest by development officers.
Not reported
Hiru does not say whether the statement answered a parliamentary question, nor whether the four officers now being paid are commission members or support staff — the body itself has 15 members. No interim findings were disclosed.
