By NNN-PTI,
Thimphu, India : Bhutanese MPs and civil servants will earn more but Prime Minister Jigme Y Thinley and his 10 Cabinet ministers will still carry home the same money they have been doing till now.
The Pay Commission has fixed civil servant’s pay raise at 35 per cent and 20 per cent for MPs.
However, Commission has not hiked the salaries of the prime minister and his Cabinet colleagues.
“This is all that the country can afford and we wanted to show that this was the best hike possible. The country cannot afford beyond what we’re giving,” Thinley said after directing the revised pay proposal to be posted for public notice.
He said the Commission’s final report would be implemented once it was passed by the Assembly.
“I expect that there’ll be no change in the Assembly,” he hoped.
Thinley also appealed to landlords and shopkeepers not to increase rents and prices of essentials due to the pay hike. “Please resist the temptation to raise house rents and cost of essential items. This is a small raise, so please make it meaningful,” he said.
According to him, various factors like inflation, limited resources in the budget, foreign reserves, loan capacity, global financial crisis and constitutional laws on finance had shaped finalising the raise.
Finance Secretary Lham Dorji said the original Pay Commission report may have been possible around six-seven months back, but did not materialise due to the financial crisis.