If you only have salary, where can you find a mansion?

Talking to VietNamNet about salary reform, Vice Chairman of the National Assembly's Committee on Social Affairs Bui Sy Loi raised the paradox between salaries and incomes of officials and civil servants.

Income by "thank you", very high envelope

According to you, what are the shortcomings of the current wage policy?

After 25 years, since 1993, through 2 salary reforms (1993, 2004), the lives of salary earners, especially civil servants, have improved little. However, administrative civil servants' salaries are not enough to live on, but their income is quite high.

That proves that there are many sources of income other than salary, including public income from the budget.

A survey by the United Nations Development Agency showed that 14.4% of workers in the public sector have two or more jobs, in other words, “one foot in, one foot out”, the main reason being that their wages are not enough to live on.

The situation of civil servants “going to work with an umbrella in the morning and returning home with an umbrella in the evening” is quite common while there is a lack of talent and a brain drain. According to experts’ estimates, up to 30% of civil servants are unable to do their jobs, costing thousands of billions of VND from the state budget every year.

The number of people receiving salaries from the state budget is too large, causing many difficulties for reforming salary policies. On the other hand, the salaries of administrative civil servants are equated with those of other subjects, are equalized, and depend on seniority...

Why do some civil servants say that their salaries are not enough to live on, but they are still rich, some even build mansions and buy luxury cars? Some are willing to spend large sums of money to "run" into government agencies?

That is the inherent contradiction of the current public administration salary. It means that our current salary mechanism has been broken, the essence of salary no longer exists.

As a general rule, the main salary always accounts for 70% or more of the total income, and the allowances do not exceed 30%. But in our country, this is the opposite, the salary is smaller than the allowances.

A number of officials, especially civil servants involved in public services, have low salaries but they work extra jobs outside or their main income comes from "thank yous", envelopes... which are very high.

Many rich people get rich by "working outside", by doing extra work, and it seems they join the civil service to have a position to enjoy other policies and benefits, not to earn income from salary.

That leads to everyone saying that civil servants have low salaries, but when recruiting, people recruit children, relatives, and some even have to pay money to become civil servants.

All the lobbying to get into the civil service to get a position, a job as well as lobbying to get promoted, clearly they always consider the money spent as an initial investment, definitely must get the capital back.

This also shows the lack of transparency in the salary and income system of civil servants.

Can't have a mansion all my life

How do salary policy shortcomings affect the civil service?

This is also one of the reasons that invalidate administrative reform. Many people and businesses need lubrication to work with government agencies.

Some officials and civil servants are arrogant, authoritarian, and harassing simply because they want to extort more income and they always use the excuse that their salaries are low so they have to do that to improve their lives.

It must also be recognized that if civil servants work with all their heart and soul, but with the current salary income, it is not commensurate, not ensuring the life for them and their families.

Therefore, reforming salary policy plays a role in changing perceptions, creating opportunities for workers and civil servants to have a living wage, without thinking about negativity or harassment.

Obviously, with the current salary of officials and civil servants, they can only have a simple house, there is no way to have a magnificent mansion, unless they have assets left by their ancestors or some other way besides salary.

Even for officials who have worked for 30-40 years and reached the position of minister, with a salary of 20-30 million/month, they still cannot have a mansion for their whole life.

So, in your opinion, what breakthrough solutions are needed to solve the current salary problem?

It is time to comprehensively reform the salary scale, salary table, basic salary, salary coefficient, salary multiple and allowances to ensure that salary is truly a lever to promote increased labor productivity and work efficiency and consider investment in salary as investment in development.

Reforming salary policy must be carried out in parallel with fundamental reform of the civil service. We cannot just study salary increases, but accept that a group of civil servants rely on or take advantage of their positions of power to seek personal benefits.

On the contrary, we should not only emphasize administrative reform but also let the salaries of civil servants not be enough to live on.

Salary policy must be capable of attracting and employing talented, virtuous, and dedicated people; at the same time, it must also be the criteria for firing incompetent people, eliminating corrupt civil servants who abuse their power, bully, and corrupt people, causing them to lose trust in the government.

Salary policy along with personnel policy must be public and transparent.

At a recent conference to give opinions on a draft project focusing on building a team of officials at all levels, especially at the strategic level, Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung proposed to immediately adjust the salary policy.

"I myself am a minister with a salary of only 11,690 million. With this salary, I ask ourselves, are we living on our salaries or are we just pretending to each other?", the Minister said and suggested that we must honestly face this reality to solve the problem.

According to him, only high salaries go hand in hand with responsibility; only then will officials and civil servants contribute wholeheartedly. For example, Singapore pays its officials and civil servants very high salaries, they work wholeheartedly, with all their might and are very afraid of losing their jobs.