Minister of Home Affairs explains why salaries are both low and unreasonable?

The economic situation is difficult, while salaries account for one-third of total budget expenditure, the Minister of Home Affairs said that it is necessary to strictly implement streamlining of staff.

At the question-and-answer session with Minister of Home Affairs Le Vinh Tan before the National Assembly on the afternoon of November 16, some delegates expressed concerns about the inadequacies in the civil servant salary policy.

Minister Le Vinh Tan answers questions at the parliament.

Delegate Nguyen Thi Phuc (Binh Thuan delegation) asked: There is a lack of equality in salaries between civil servants at all levels. They are all the same, but some have allowances and some do not, and the salaries of civil servants are low... What is the Minister's responsibility?

Specifically, Ms. Phuc cited, they are also cadres and civil servants but there is no industry-level public service allowance; they are also Party officials but there is no 30% allowance at the commune and ward levels; they are also special sectors such as health and education but there is no industry-level seniority.

"The salary policy for grassroots cadres is too low. Even part-time cadres do not have a salary regime, only very low allowances, which has created unreasonableness in the implementation of salary policy," delegate Phuc stated the reality.

Delegate Nguyen Thi Phuc,

"As a Minister, the Minister must have seen this unreasonable situation, but why has it been allowed to drag on like this? What is the Minister doing to quickly resolve the above situation?", Ms. Phuc questioned Minister Le Vinh Tan.

On the other hand, citing the report of the Ministry of Finance, the Binh Thuan delegation questioned why the income of officials is still very low, while regular expenses account for 64%.

"That shows that our State apparatus is too cumbersome," commented delegate Phuc, and asked the Minister about solutions to improve the effectiveness of personnel work and overcome the above situation.

Minister of Home Affairs Le Vinh Tan explained: Salary is a complicated and difficult issue. The salary roadmap has been reported since 2004 and has been presented to 5 Central Committee meetings so far.

Specifically, since 2013, the previous and current minimum wage is the basic salary of 1,150,000 VND. From 2013 to 2015, the basic salary did not increase for two consecutive years, and in 2016, the basic salary increased by only 7% to 1,210,000 VND.

"If so, in the upcoming year 2017, according to the proposal of the Ministry of Home Affairs, we pay off the debt for previous years without increasing, plus the remaining part of 2016, we only increased by 7%, we have to increase by 26%, so this salary will be up to 1,420,000 VND," said the Minister.

However, Mr. Le Vinh Tan said that this increase would make the total budget expenditure too large. Therefore, the Salary Steering Committee met and decided to propose to the Government and the National Assembly in 2017 to continue to increase the salary by only 7%, equivalent to less than 90,000 VND, raising the salary to 1,300,000 VND as the basic salary.

Citing the difficult economic situation and budget collection difficulties, while salary payments account for one-third of total budget expenditures, the Minister said it is necessary to strictly implement the issue of streamlining staff.

The Minister also said that in the past two years, only 17,000 people have been reduced, while if the average reduction is 1% per year, the number of people that need to be reduced is 36,000.

Therefore, Minister Le Vinh Tan emphasized that it is necessary to strictly implement this issue, at the same time socialize public service units, gradually eliminate the subsidy mechanism for these service units and gradually increase fees, converting them into prices to ensure that public service units can fully account for inputs./.

According to VOV