The pay scale conundrum
THE government is supposed to announce a new pay scale soon. Speculations based on the proposed recommendations of the Pay Commission thus abound, leaving some in an upbeat mood. The highest proposed basic, Tk.45,000, at least sounds good for the higher officials in the state service. However, the lowest proposed basic, Tk.4,000, is strikingly low in comparison.
The lower groups, thus, have every reason to express frustration at the Tk.41,000 difference in the proposed framework. This is, however, just one side of the coin. On the other hand is the salary structure of officials of the rank of secretary compared to their counterparts in the private sector, where the latter are drawing salaries ranging from lakhs to millions. What can one make of this?
Is this, indeed, not a world of relative poverty on top of absolute and hardcore poverty? Though there is no alternative to a fat amount of money in leading a respectable life these days, our high officials can at least find solace in the fact that they are somehow enjoying a reasonably prestigious life. In fact, the motivating power of pay and emoluments is universal insofar as salaried employees are concerned.
Governments in Bangladesh have never been able to pay the public servants a satisfactory salary. While the governments' sincerity towards providing its employees with an attractive salary remains to be studied, politics with the pay, especially with the national pay scale, is very popular with the governments in Bangladesh -- which has, so to say, become a classic conundrum for the public employees.
The governments have always been found keen on reaping benefits from a pay revision, no matter what benefit it brings for the government employees. That is why they declare a new pay commission well before declaring a new pay scale. What is more, publicity is geared up. Consequently, speculations become increasingly intensified and the government employees get carried away.
To my mind, the publicity on the part of the government serves two objectives. One is to win the government employees' support and sympathy and the other is to provide the businessmen with a launching pad to go for a mad drive. Thus, the wily businessmen increase the prices of commodities and essentials even before the formal declaration of a new pay scale.
Later on, however, they increase prices in phases since a pay scale is usually implemented in phases. Consequently, the real value of the pay increase gets defeated and the new pay scale fails to produce tangible betterment. As has been noticed for ages, a new pay scale improves the living conditions by only a little.
There are serious allegations that in the cases of senior and midlevel employees, the salary provided by the government is spent in just the first ten to fifteen days, and the lower level employees live virtually from hand to mouth all the year round. But, the basic necessities have to be fulfilled somehow. Thus, service orientation makes way for corruption.
This is not to mean that a handsome salary is a guarantee of honesty, but it is believed to be a disincentive against corruption. Admittedly, corruption, an avoidable malady, is eating into the vitals of this country.
Millions of dollars have been misappropriated by the corrupt cartels, depriving the national exchequer and preventing the government from providing an attractive salary package to the government employees.
It is, in fact, a vicious cycle that plagues corruption-ridden countries, not least Bangladesh: Low revenue leads to low salary, and low salary leads inevitably leads to widespread corruption. Many honest government employees thus languish in hardship and find things really difficult to cope with in this land of regular and drastic price hikes.
There in no denying that, to keep the government employees' composure undisturbed, they have to be provided with a competitive salary. Otherwise, the crooked ones in unison with the greedy and needy political incumbents will not only eat up whatever comes their way but also ensure optimum use of their guiles to extort more and more from whatever sources.
The bottom line is that the government can provide much sought-after relief to the government employees from the age-old pay scale conundrum by forming a permanent pay commission, as promised by the grand alliance and proposed by the latest pay commission, which, like many other countries, would revise pay of the public employees from time to time on the basis of inflation.
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