Proposing 3 options to increase salaries for 5 million people

The Ministry of Finance said that the Prime Minister has authorized the Minister of Finance to sign a report on behalf of the Government to report to the National Assembly Standing Committee for consideration before submitting it to the National Assembly for approval in the 2015 state budget allocation plan.

Late in the afternoon of November 6, the Prime Minister approved the Ministry of Finance’s salary increase proposal. Accordingly, 5 million people in 3 groups will have their salaries increased from January 1, 2015.

According to the proposal, from January 1, 2015, an 8% increase will be made to the salaries of three groups of people, including retirees; preferential allowances for meritorious people, with the number of groups guaranteed by the State budget being about 2.9 million people.

At the same time, the group of cadres, civil servants, public employees, and armed forces with a salary coefficient of 2.34 or less, currently accounting for about 35% of the total number of cadres, over 1.8 million people, also proposed a salary increase.

In this proposal there are 3 specific options:

Option 1:Adjust the basic salary from 1.15 million VND/month to 1.24 million VND/month, corresponding to an increase of 8%, about 90,000 VND/month. Pensions and preferential allowances for meritorious people increase at the same rate as the basic salary increase - the increase corresponds to the inflation rate in 2014-2015.

Thus, with this plan, the basic salary will be adjusted for all cadres, civil servants, public employees, armed forces, pensioners and beneficiaries of preferential allowances for meritorious people guaranteed by the State budget. The total funding requirement will increase by about 33,000 billion VND.

Option 2:Only 8% increase for pensions, preferential allowances for meritorious people and salaries for low-income civil servants, public employees and armed forces. The Ministry of Finance explained: In 2011, hardship allowances were implemented for low-income civil servants and public employees with a salary coefficient of 3.0 or less, at that time there was no public service allowance. Currently, a public service allowance of 25% of the current salary has been implemented, so it is equivalent to people with a salary coefficient of 3.0 in 2011.

Therefore, it is only recommended to increase salaries for those with a salary coefficient of 2.34 or less (accounting for about 35% of the total number of cadres, civil servants, public employees, and armed forces). According to this plan, the funding requirement will increase by about 11,100 billion VND.

Option 3:Only pensions and preferential allowances for meritorious people will be adjusted by 10%. According to this plan, the funding requirement will increase by about 6,700 billion VND.

According to the Ministry of Finance, the above adjustment will help improve the income of nearly 5 million people, accounting for about 2/3 of the total number of people receiving salaries and subsidies from the state budget.

The proposal to increase salaries after there were opinions that there might be no salary increase next year is a great effort of the Government, especially in the context of difficult state budget revenue.

To ensure the source of salary increase expenditure, the Ministry of Finance proposed to use a part of the increased state budget revenue in 2014 to be transferred to 2015 for implementation. It is known that the state budget revenue in 2014 is expected to exceed the plan by 63,000 billion VND. In addition, about 1,100 billion VND is guaranteed from local budget sources for salary reform.

Previously, in the 2015 budget allocation plan submitted to the National Assembly at this session, the Government proposed to postpone the salary increase roadmap due to the inability to arrange resources. However, at the National Assembly forum, there were many dissenting opinions, stating that if salaries were not increased according to the roadmap, it would lead to many consequences in society.

According to vietnamnet