The race to pay the highest remuneration package for state employees and commercial sector employees of the state owned firms has hit new records today. The President has introduced a new remuneration package to the atoll chiefs (his appointees in the atolls) to over 420,000 Maldivian Rufiyaa a year. In turn, the honorable Members of Parliament have passed a motion to pay themselves a remuneration package of over half a million Rufiyaa a year plus travel and medical benefits anywhere in the region for themselves and members of their families. The parliament has also proposed amendments to the salary of the Auditor General to be 1.2million Rufiyaa a year.
All this is in the backdrop of the recent race to have government agencies outside the civil service to accord the highest remuneration packages to their staff. The civil service is following suit and the Civil Service Commission has announced that it will be going into negotiations with the Minister of Finance for a pay rise.
The majority of MPs are big businessmen themselves and therefore cannot affort to live on the meagre remuneration they currently get. The top civil service officers themselves have their own second jobs as advisors or consultants or for freelance, which they execute mostly using state resources and neglecting their duties. In the absence of statistics that show the national averages for remuneration in various sectors, the civil service, the government and other state agencies are ripping off the public. The beauty for them is that they don’t have to earn a cent of what they demand and pay upon themselves.
All this in the backdrop of an upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections may teach a lesson to our politicians and bureaucrats! But then it will be too late.
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Smile and Let Smile 
Anonymous
June 4, 2008 at 10:14 am
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=29146248584say no to tycoons as mps
paperclippenny
June 4, 2008 at 10:05 am
it just depresses me now đŸ˜¦
amin
June 4, 2008 at 9:55 am
what a pathetic situation Maldives is in today. wonder if these politicians even for a second think of the common people. don’t they have any morality? how is the parliament and the government proposing to come up with the finance to pay themselves this handsome salary? if the state was this rich why hasn’t it been channelling the money out for the tsunami victims? why are the government so stringent on measures of educational resources and the like? why is qayyoo always on about getting external financial assistance? guess he had some stashed away for a day like this – he is clever. this whole thing is a grand scheme of his i bet.he is buying all the powerful people now. closer to the election he will appeal to the common folks with a great sob story about how multiparty competition and mumbo jumbo has lead to the downfall of the economy and bla bla bla. and the people, well, they will end up voting for him and he will be powerful than ever.