The Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament today approved increasing the salaries of the Speaker of Parliament, ministers, and island councilors.
The Speaker of the Parliament currently receives MVR 73,000 as salary and allowances. This is an amount even smaller than the salary received by members of parliament.
The reason for this disparity is that the Speaker does not receive a committee allowance.
While members of parliament receive MVR 82,000 as salary, the Deputy Speaker receives MVR 91,000 for salary and allowances.
Therefore, the Public Accounts Committee decided to eliminate this disparity and add an allowance of MVR 22,000 for the Speaker. With this, the Speaker will receive a total of MVR 95,125.
Due to the changes brought to the salaries of heads of the judiciary and independent institutions last year, their salaries are currently higher than those of ministers. Although a proposal was made to increase ministers' salaries at the time, that matter was put on hold following criticism, and a decision was made to increase the salaries of only the judiciary and independent institutions.
With that change, the Chief Justice's salary is MVR 91,000. Judges receive MVR 89,000, while holders of independent posts receive MVR 74,000, and heads of independent institutions receive MVR 59,000.
To eliminate that disparity, a proposal was submitted to the Public Accounts Committee today to increase the car allowance for ministers. Currently, ministers receive MVR 58,500 as salary. The proposal was to add MVR 17,000 to it. That consists of MVR 2,000 for petrol allowance, MVR 12,000 for driver salary, and MVR 3,000 for drivers' living allowance.
With this, ministers' salaries will increase to MVR 75,000.
A proposal was also submitted to the committee to grant an additional allowance to island council presidents, vice presidents, and members. That is MVR 5,000 as a service allowance. The committee stated that this change is being brought to eliminate the disparity that exists with city council salaries.
In the meeting held today at the Public Accounts Committee, the proposal to increase the Speaker's salary, ministers' car allowance, and councilors' salaries was submitted by Kelaa constituency MP Abdulla Shareef.
When this proposal was put to a vote, it passed with the votes of PNC members serving on the committee. However, while two MDP members did not vote, Hanimaadhoo constituency MP Abdul Ghafoor Moosa stated that this is not a good time to bring this change and that this will become a heavy burden on the state.
