MP Pay Hike 23 December, 2009 -
The finance secretary has clarified that the letter, which was sent to parliament in April 2008, and is being used as the main basis by MPs to say that their pay was never fixed, is no longer valid.
The letter states, “Members of the National Council and the National Assembly may be paid a monthly salary of Nu 30,000, along with house rent allowance of 30%. It may please be noted that this is an interim arrangement, and whatever may be decided for the MP’s entitlements later on, that will be the one applicable.”
However, finance secretary Lam Dorji who wrote the letter and was also a member of the former Pay Commission, said, “It is my view that the letter was only valid up to January 1, 2009 since, after that, the government fixed the final pay for MPs with a 20 percent hike and additional allowances.”
“The letter clearly says ‘…whatever may be decided for the MPs later on will be applicable’ and, since the government’s version of the pay commission report in January 2009 fixed their pay and allowances, that should be considered as the final and fixed pay,” he explained.
When told of the finance secretary’s stand, NA MP and DPT party whip Tshering Penjor said, “From our point of view, the MP’s pay was never fixed and the 20 percent hike was only a hike on an interim and not the fixed pay.”
NC MP Jigmi Rinzin also agreed that the main proof behind the MP’s pay not being fixed was the letter from the finance secretary in April 2008. However, in response to the finance secretary’s latest stand, he said, “It depends on how one interprets the letter and the MPs have their own interpretation and MoF has its own.”
The second reason for the recent hike was to equate the MP’s and government secretary’s pay. However, Kuensel has also found that this reasoning is contradicted by the original pay commission report.
Page 26 of the report clearly mentions that the pay commission extensively deliberated on the issue of a separate pay structure for government secretaries but, since the pay in the civil service is linked with the RCSC position levels, a separate pay structure was not proposed. The commission left the decision to the government, which also decided not to come out with a separate pay structure for secretaries.
This meant that government secretaries, who are 10 ministry secretaries and 1 cabinet secretary, would fall under the RCSC Ex1/Es1 category, which already has 24 civil servants, including the vice chancellor of RUB and non-ministry secretaries like the GNHC secretary, the boundary secretary, the land commission secretary and other professionals.
There is significant pay differences even among government secretaries, based on seniority and promotion, which constantly change.
This means that there is no separate secretary’s pay scale and the MP’s comparison was to a standard that does not exist in reality, said a former pay commission member.
By Tenzing Lamsang
