MDP: Everyone agreed on pay hike, later disagreement politically motivated

The main opposition MDP – which holds a majority in the Parliament – said on Wednesday that the decision to raise the salaries of top government officials and parliamentarians was made following discussions at the Public Accounts Committee and with the agreement of all members, and that their later disagreement is politically motivated.

The Public Accounts Committee’s decision on Tuesday to raise the salaries of officials whose salaries are determined by the Parliament – including the president, vice president, government ministers, parliamentarians and judges – has sparked public condemnation. The President’s Office has stated that it wasn’t at the request of the government.

In a press briefing on Wednesday evening, MDP parliamentary group’s leader Mohamed Rasheed Hussain (Bigey) that it was only recently that the Parliament began to properly function.

“During our review of a special code for pay harmonization, we allocated MVR 500 million for that. This code does not apply to those whose salaries are determined by the Parliament alone,” said Rasheed, who represents the Alifushi constituency.

He said that the committee proposed utilizing MVR 90 million out of the MVR 500 million budgeted for pay hikes to raise the salaries of those whose salaries are determined by the Parliament.

But following public backlash over the committee’s decision on Tuesday, some of the members later said they do not support a pay hike. And Democrats’, the minority party, has issued a three-line ‘red whip’ to vote against.

On Wednesday, Bigey said that the committee had consulted with the Judges’ Association and councils regarding salary increments. He said that given that judges are barred from involvement in any other work, they had asked for a pay hike – the first in 13 years.

“Public Accounts Committee members inform us that the members of the committee, including those who are currently criticizing the decision, had supported and spoke about the importance of making such changes during the review,” he said.

“But, despite the different interviews to the press for political purposes, the Parliament made the decision to increase the salaries based on proposals the Parliament received to implement this during the budget review and various other platforms.”

Rasheed said that it isn’t just the salaries of parliamentarians that is being raised, but that the committee made the decision to make uniform changes to the salaries of all officials whose salaries are determined by the Parliament, under the pay harmonization initiative.

He added that the decision will only be enforced once it passes a vote on the Parliament floor.

The Public Accounts Committee had made the decision to raise the salaries of elected and judicial officials with a majority vote.