Paradox of General Secretary and President's salary being lower than accountant's

If the highest coefficient of 13 is multiplied by the base level, the monthly salary of many country leaders reaches more than 15 million VND, lower than the basic salary of the chief accountant of the lowest-ranking company.

The workshop "Context and possibilities of salary reform" chaired by the Ministry of Home Affairs on October 12 had the participation of many leaders of ministries, branches as well as experts in this field. The shortcomings in Vietnam's salary regime were once again dissected by many experts. A comparison considered to be lame but clearly showing the shortcomings was made by Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Xuan Cau -Former Head of Department of Economics and Resource ManagementNational Economics University - provides analysis.

According to him, the current basic salary regime (salary applied to cadres, civil servants and public employees) takes the average coefficient of university graduates (coefficient 2.34) - that is, based on professional qualifications. Meanwhile, the highest coefficient in this table is taken from the General Secretary and President, that is, based on the title.

If following this regime, with the highest coefficient of 13, multiplied by the basic salary, the salary of the highest leadership position in the country is only over 15 million VND. Meanwhile, according to the regulations in Decree 51/2013, the lowest basic salary of the chief accountant of a class III company (the lowest class) is 16 million VND and the position of Chairman of the Board of Members of an economic group is 36 million.

"If we compare like that, we can see the 'ultimate' absurdity. If the General Secretary and President's salaries are like that, then it is understandable that the salaries of officials and civil servants are low. Of course, everything mentioned here is only according to regulations, not reality," said Mr. Cau.

Vietnam's basic wage policy has been discussed many times but no reform plan has been found due to limited budget.Photo: PV

According to this expert, even if from 2016 to 2020, the State changes this relationship by changing the numbers, it will only be a mechanical way of doing things according to old thinking, a "prescription" style of situational and coping, not a real reform.

“The wage policy is like a shirt that is gradually falling apart. It needs to be replaced quickly to change the appearance of a person,” said Mr. Cau.

UMBRELLAMr. Thang Van Phuc - former Deputy Minister of Home Affairs said that the current salary of civil servants does not reflect the true value of labor. Therefore, the social values ​​of civil servants are reduced, making the effectiveness of public service implementation low, vulnerable and creating a land for bureaucracy and corruption to develop.

Mr. Phuc also said that the design of the salary system, salary levels, and salary-based allowances is increasingly showing inadequacies and contradictions, not reflecting the job positions of officials and civil servants...

“The salary of a retired Deputy Minister is not equal to that of a Lieutenant Colonel,” Mr. Phuc compared. However, it is worth mentioning that although salary reform has been discussed many times, when it comes to “where is the money”, it stops.

In his speech, Dr. Le Hong Huyen - Director of the Social Affairs Department, Central Economic Committee also focused on the issue of "where is the money" to reform wages. Accordingly, autonomy and self-responsibility should be given to public service units operating under the enterprise mechanism to create a breakthrough.

NIn addition, Mr. Huyen said that some public mass organizations should be converted to operate under a voluntary, self-managed, and autonomous mechanism so that the State budget does not have to spend and the saved resources should be used to reform salaries. This proposal was made in the context of a recent research report stating that the total budget spent on public mass organizations is more than 14,000 billion VND.Along with this plan, he proposed to narrow down the group of people who can use public cars and aim to include this cost in salaries.

According to Mr. Phuc, the mechanism innovation should be in the direction of separating the State administrative management and the public service sector. Accordingly, salaries in State enterprises and public service sectors should be applied as civil servant salaries, and should not be as high as they are now. However, due to production and business activities, profitable enterprises should not apply salary levels that are not linked to production results because that leads to a situation where many people still receive high salaries but when enterprises make losses, the state bears the cost.For public service sector salaries, it is also divided into two parts including general salary and income generated from added services.

According to VNE