It is reported that Minister of Public Security Tiran Alas said in Parliament yesterday (13) that 5000 officers will be recruited for the police service in the next year (2024) in response to a question raised by opposition leader Sajith Premadasa.
The minister who commented further,
” Steps have been taken to remove the Special Task Force personnel engaged in firefighting and life saving duties on the highway system. The reason is that the duties of the Special Task Force on the highway are only to act in the event of a traffic accident and deal with it in the event of a fire. .; In the last eleven months, such deployments have been made only in 164 cases. For 175 members of the special task force employed in those places, an expenditure of 260 million rupees is incurred per year. They are not assigned any special duty except to act in case of an emergency. We need the special task force to combat the existing drug mafia. For that, there is already a shortage of 2300 staff members. Taking this into consideration, we have taken steps to remove these 175 members. Sri Lanka Police currently has 21422 vacancies in the general service and 2345 vacancies in the special task force. 5000 new officers are being recruited.”