The promotions will be carried out despite the cadre positions structure of the Police Department, and 31,000 Police Constables are to be promoted with the approval of the ministry’s Management Services Department, according to the communique, which points out that the Government had taken a policy decision to promote the police officers. The ministry communique states: “The Police Department has a staff of over 85,000 Policemen and, 31,540 of them are in the positions of constables and inspectors.
On March 2019, the Department of Police had made a request to the Management Services Department of the Treasury through the Ministry of Defence to prepare a mechanism to promote, especially, its majoriy police constables despite the limitations in its cadre positions.“This request had been made to the Management Services Department with the recommendations of the Police Commission that is in charge of promotion, transfers and disciplinary action of the Police Department. The onus of approving the staff recuitment procedure, the Scheme of Recruitment, including salaries, in the public sector and semi-government sector, lies with the Department of Management Service of the Ministry of Finance.The Management Services Department has already held discussions on the matter with the relevant officials of the Police Department in this regard.
“Some reports published by certain media which quoted Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera as saying that there was no money to promote police constables in the Department of Police are totally false and fabricated. The request made by the Police Department from the relevant sectors to promote the constables was subject to discussion by the Manageent Services Department of the Treasury under ordinary administrative peocedure. No minister is involved in this matter as it comes under the ordinary administrative procedure. The reports published in certain media that stated that Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweea had attempted to thwart this by stating that there is no money to do that, were misleading as the minister was not involved in the process.
“The Management Services Department of the Finance Ministry has accepted, at policy level, the need to promote police constables to positions up to Chief Inspector of Police without taking into consideration the number of existing vacancies involving those positions. As further details are required to take decisions to implement these proposals, the Salaries and Cadre Commission, after having discussions with the Police Department, has requested the Police Department to send the necessary details. The letter sent to the Police Department in last June has not been replied so far.”