Restricting The Cabinet To 25 Alone Will Not Do The Job

By W.A Wijewardena -June 3, 2013

Dr. W.A. Wijewardena

Two of the draft proposals that have recently been presented by sections of the Opposition for a new constitution for Sri Lanka have one common feature – that is to restrict the number of Cabinet ministers to 25.

Reducing the size of the Cabinet will ease budgetary burdens

This proposal merits consideration in view of the huge cost that has been imposed on the nation’s public finances by the ever-expanding Cabinet and the correspondingly expanding public service. This is because when a new minister is appointed, he has to have an office with staff and that staff should have additional supporting staff and so on.

So, the number of the public servants in service and the logistics needed to support them multiply even without the knowledge of the Executive that appoints the ministers. This has imposed a huge constraint on the Government budget which has tax revenue of only 11% of GDP but has to use more than half of that – roughly about 6.5% of GDP – to pay salaries to existing public servants and pensions to those who have left the service.
An emerging economy like Sri Lanka aspiring to undertake a massive infrastructure development program out of borrowed money from foreign sources cannot afford to run a huge public sector with such high costs without running into a severe fiscal crisis and from that point, restricting the number of ministers is a worthy proposal.

The Executive taking over the legislature through a large Cabinet  

Restricting the Cabinet to 25 Alone Will Not Do the Job by nelvely