Malé, Maldives —Finance Minister of Maldives, Ibrahim Ameer stated that they are working on releasing the relevent policy at the earliest to equalize the basic pay of the people who are working at the same levels in government jobs.
Noting that employees of the same level in different administrations of the government usually has major differences in their basic salary, Minister Ameer stated that they are preparing to release a policy to clear the difference in the basic pay of the same level of employees.
Speaking at an interview for local media outlet “Adhadhu”, Minister Ameer stated that many international finance authorities have shared concerns as the expenses for the government is higher than the income in the country’s annual budget.
While Maldives has by far spent a total of 11.3 billion, 8.6 billion was spent to run the government. Regarding this, Ministry Ameer stated that they are working on decreasing the expenditure of the government especially due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The steps taken to decrease the expenses include of lowering the pay of the employees in higher positions of the government for five months. When Minister Ameer was questioned whether such a step would be made permanent, he responded by saying that they are currently working on pay harmonizing to lower the difference between two employees that with the same type of job in the government.
For example, the administrative position of two different places have differences of thousands in their pay. The basic salary for administrative positions should be the same.
Finance Minister of Maldives, Ibrahim Ameer.
However, Minister Ameer said that the allowances can differ after considering the difficulty rate of their work and difficulties they face in the work environment.
Therefore Minister Ameer stated that the Ministry will be releasing a policy that consists of the basic salaries of government employees such as teachers and health workers to harmonize their pay. He said that the this policy will help reduce the major differences that employees of the same level have in their salaries.
