Government Sector job applicants use RTI to get details of the recruitment process
Demand for government sector jobs in Sri Lanka is very high. The process of securing a position at a state organization thus is a very competitive one. In the early 1990s, then President Ranasinghe Premadasa introduced a new criterion for selecting entrants to the state sector which is through a competitive examination. Even though the system was to make the entrance process more transparent and weed out any corruption in the system, allegations that there is rigging and favorite in the process has been rife, and that too, not without a valid ground.
But the Right to Information (RTI) Act introduced in 2016 is giving hope to those who feel they are being treated unfairly. The new law has become a tool for many prospective state sector job applicants to ensure those recruited are done so on merit and not favoritism.
a recent case where the RTI was used involves a young woman who had applied for a post in the Excise Department.
Vinu* of Badulla, Hapuwatta, applied for a position advertised by Sri Lanka Excise Department on 22 August 2014. The vacancy was published in the Gazette Number 1877. She was called upon to sit for the competitive examination on 01st August 2015 conducted by the Finance Ministry under the number 41800.
The applicant obtained 150 marks with the rank of 122. After passing the examination she attended the interview conducted by Sri Lanka Excise Department (Colombo) on 01st March 2016. But that was the last she heard about her application and she was not informed by the Department about the results of her interview.
She learnt about the Right to Information Act by a workshop conducted by Sri Lanka Press Institute with the financial support from the USAID- SDGAP program activity.