NDA president urges Govt to review salary structure

THE Government should start to seriously look into reviewing the entire public service salary structure if it was to ensure there is a wealthy, vibrant and healthy public workforce in the country.
PNG Medical Society president Dr Mathias Sapuri said this yesterday when commending the National Doctors Association for finally getting the departments of Personnel Management and Health to sign the 2007-09 salary reclassification MoU for national doctors on Monday.
He said professional doctors in the country had long been owed this award and it was only timely and a bonus for Papua New Guinea as it would ensure professional doctors continued to work within the system to improve the deteriorating public health sector.
“While applauding this milestone achievement by the doctors union I hope this establishes a platform where the same recognition can be given to the other public servants,” he said.
He added that the high cost of living demanded so much from ordinary Papua New Guinean families in terms of the price of goods and services and it was only important that other professionals were awarded accordingly.
He said most often such families were unable to independently meet the high costs of either educating their child at school or to pay for the much-needed primary health care.
Dr Sapuri indicated that the entire public sector workforce in the country is well-looked after in terms of proper remuneration according to the level of their expertise and the nature of the public services they provided PNG can prosper.