Govt ministers should take pay cuts: Opposition

National

BY JEFFREY ELAPA
THE Opposition is calling on Government ministers to take pay cuts instead of public servants to help reduce the public service salary bill.
Opposition shadow treasurer Joseph Lelang and Kerema MP Richard Mendani said yesterday that the general order issued by the minister for public service to cut 5-10 per cent of the public service salary was going to “really affect the lives of the people”.
They said the cut plus tax on public servants to realise K50 million was double-dipping.
“You already have the personal tax cut and now you want to cut the pay by another 5-10 per cent. This is a deceitful act of a government.
“This is the first time since independence we see a desperate Government planning to cut the wages of public servants when the families are looking forward to Christmas,” Lelang said.
He said pay cut was the last thing any government could do to its people even when it was in dire need or in a very badly shrinking economy.
“This is insensitive and it shows the Government does not care about the welfare of its people,” he said.
The Opposition wants the Government through the Public Service Minister Westly Nukundj to remove the general order in relation to salary cuts.
Lelang said for the Government to announce such a cut was also illegal as it required Parliament approval for any such changes to budget appropriations, which should have been addressed through the supplementary budget recently passed.
He said the K850 million wage blow-out had been addressed through the 2019 supplementary budget and there was no need to cut the wages of the public servant who were trying hard to make ends meet during the tough economical times and when inflation was really high.

4 comments

  • Always targeting Public Servants made scrape goats for mismanagement of economy by the government. A 5 – 10 percent is too much. The landlord from whom I rent K200 a fortnight for a single room at Morata 1 will not reduce his rental charge by 5 to 10 percent . Can there be a balance? Reduce income tax by 5 – 10 percent and then cut salaries by the same percentage.

  • First the government should clean up itself. Get rid of all the duplicate positions, unnecessary positions, ghost names on the payroll, ineffective and outdated workforce who can’t conform to change and innovation in the workplace, attitude problem people who dont turn up to work, people who have never been productive (dormant all these years, yet still on payroll), unnecessary foreign and national consultants, unnecessary contractors and the list could be unbelievable though…Then determine how much can be saved from this exercise.

  • What about the Opposition Members salaries? Can’t those be touched?

    I believe all parliamentarian’s salaries should be cut accordingly with those of senior public servants. They have been taking a joyride for too long and its about time they gave some of it back to the people during these hard times.

  • Public Servants if they cut our pay than we all should go on a nation wide strike.
    5-10%, they say it like its a small thing to them but to us its a huge difference in our pay, that could go very useful since its coming close to Christmas.

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