Northern SLTB depots make profit
While Southern depots incur losses
BY
TSANDUN A JAYASEKERA ransport Minister Nimal Siripala De Silva instructed officials to provide him a report on how a number of SLTB depots in the North had recorded profits and find a way to apply the system on loss making SLTB depots in the South.
He told the officials at the monthly progress review meeting of the Transport Ministry after an inspection tour by Minister De Silva last week at Maligawatte and Dematagoda railway yards.
The officials pointed out those seven SLTB depots in the North, namely Jaffna, Point-Pedro, Karainagar, Mullaithevu, Mannar, Vavuniya and Kilinochchi had started recording nearly Rs. 18 million profits from an income of Rs. 30 million and the income in the last few months and profits were increasing rapidly due to the dedication and discipline of the employees of those depots.
Minister De Silva said the SLTB trade unions must take a leaf out of the book of employees of the SLTB depots in the North and encourage their membership in the South to work hard to make their depots profit making entities. The trade unions must in particular urge bus conductors and drivers not to keep a part of the daily collections for themselves which is the order of the day among many of them which is also the main reason for a majority of SLTB depots running with loss.
Minister De Silva instructed SLTB officials at the meeting not to recruit employees to the SLTB as there was an excess of employees at the SLTB numbering 36,000 and as a result the country’s main public transport system has become a liability to the Treasury.
“Almost all politicians of previous governments had made it a habit to use the SLTB as a job agency and as a result the SLTB today has a double the number of workforce it needs and hence the continuous losses. The political interference at the SLTB has come to the point where after every general election supporters of the winning party drive away depot officials of the losing party and sit on their seats notwithstanding whether they have required minimum qualifications or not,” Minister De Silva stressed.