Public servants to get salary boost

Frw 45 billion was added to the salary budget this year. (file photo)

The ministry of public service and labor released a new pay policy whereby salaries for public servants have been boosted to certain percentages.

“We established this pay and retention policy aiming at having fit, committed and well-paid public officials. If Rwanda has to achieve vision 2020, EDPRS and MDGs, then we must have employees ready to deliver and working effectively”, MIFOTRA’s permanent secretary Samuel Mulindwa told the press yesterday, announcing the new policy to be effective by January 2013.

Increase was made mostly to public servants with lower index values, starting by above 400 index values.

Index value means the starting figures on the amount of money one gets as a salary. Example, the index value of Frw 200,000 is 200, whereas the index value of Frw 40,000 is Frw 40.

“Public servants with an index values of 250, 270, and 280 will be put on an index value of 300 by July this year,” affirmed the MIFOTRA PS.

“Those with the index value of 400 and 500, their salaries will remain stable but they will have a horizontal step promotion depending on what they are producing,” said the PS who further added that this will remain the case till those with lower index value reach 400 as an index value.

Journalists raised many concerns as for the teachers’ salary, and the PS in MINALOC said; teachers with A2 level will have an increase of 10% of their salary.

Mulindwa explained that public servants who were getting top-ups will have them reduced and by 2016, there will be no top-ups. “With the implementation of this policy, we’ll be boosting their salaries but at the same time lowering their top-ups.”

This increase did not ignore top officials because the policy marks an increase of 24% of their ordinary salary to the policy-makers (ministry level), which means that a minister who normally earns Frw 1,023,000 per month will now earn a monthly pay of Rwf1,273,236.

Justifying the reason of this increase, Mulindwa said: “they were inequalities between salaries in public institutions, especially ministries. Thus, we had 18% of public servants who quitted their jobs because of turnovers and there was pay stagnation since the last payments reform in 2006.”

For this policy, Frw 45 billion was added to the salary budget this year.

“58% of this money (Frw26 billion) has been allocated to boosting standards of living of teachers on primary and secondary levels with Frw 5 billion that will be granted  to their Umwalimu SACCO.

Parallel to this new salary policy is the management of public treasurer that is spent on public cars, where the cabinet recently took a decision to reduce the cost by helping public officials to buy their owns.

“Having realized that public officials transport were costing much, and that some leaders were using public owned cars in their private businesses, the government decided to help them buy their own cars,” stated Innocent Kabogoza, the in charge of transport in the ministry of infrastructures  .

Kabogoza said that, the government spends a lot of money in paying the half of the price of cars of some officials, paying maintenance fees and taxes.

“All these provisions by the government, he added, have an impact on the service delivery and efficiency of public servants.

Posted by Jean-Christophe Nsanzimana on Jun 15 2012. Filed under Daily News, National. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.