PPM Parliamentary Group Leader questions government proposal to raise Police and MNDF wage rates

Abdulla Yamin, the Leader of the Parliamentary Group of the Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM), one of the major opposition sides, has questioned government motives in proposing to raise the salaries of the police and armed forces (MNDF).

The government has proposed to raise the salary rates of the police and MNDF by 40 per cent starting from the next year, when it introduced the Annual Budget for the year 2012 at the People’s Majlis. The details of the decision were not included in the budget, as details of recurrent expenditure for these institutions were not included in the budget book.

Speaking today at the People’s Majlis during the debate on the budget, Yamin said that the government’s decision to raise salary rates for police and MNDF became known only after those institutions were questioned by the Budget Committee at the People’s Majlis.

Yamin noted in his speech that the government had not proposed any raise or reimbursement for Civil Servants who are already getting a much less amount as wages than the police and MNDF, and a portion of whose salary the government has withheld for more than two years saying that the government could not afford it.

“Details of the recurrent expenditure are not given. We came to know of the proposition to increase salary rates for MNDF and police only when we summoned officials of these institutions to the Budget Committee and questioned them. We have to remind ourselves that the civil servants of this country already get a much less amount of salary compared to the said institutions. However, the government has not only made no propositions about raising the wages of civil servants, but it has shown no interest in reimbursing the deducted portions of the civil servants’ wages for two years, and the government has here proposed to dismiss many civil servants from their jobs again”, said Yamin.