Pay rise for 1.2mil civil servants

BERNAMA.

PRIME MINISTER Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi today announced that the 1.2 million civil servants in the country would be getting a pay rise because they deserve it.

The prime minister said the disparity in the salaries of high and low-ranking government employees would have to be taken into account in determining the pay hike formula.

He also said that the high cost of living had caused hardship to those in the lower income group.

“Government employees should get a pay increase but right now only (Public Service Department (PSD) Director-General) Tan Sri Ismail Adam knows the quantum,” he told the monthly assembly of staff in the Prime Minister’s Department here.

Abdullah said the government did not know what the recommendations of the PSD would be.
This is the first time that the government had given a definite “Yes"

to the question of a salary increase for civil servants as previously the response had been that the matter was being studied.