Minister of Civil Service declares:Unified wage system in Yemen [Archives:2004/700/Local News]

Mohammed Al-Qadhi
Mr. Hamoud Khalid al-Sufi, Minister of Civil Service, said that the government is to carry out a new wage system for government employees to meet international wage standards. He told Yemen Times the main concern now is not raising the salaries to meet the recent price hikes but to establish a new wage system replacing different wage systems in practice in different institutions.
“This system will not take into account the now and then price hikes but will meet the employees needs, enabling them to live decently and encourage them to improve their performance,” he said.
However, he stressed that there must be some measures taken to implement this strategy, mainly finding out real finance sources that will not lead to inflation and then fall of the riyal value against the US dollar.
At the level of administration, there must be more steps to apply the pension system, implementing the Civil Service Fund (CSF) as soon as possible so that surplus labor must be shifted to the CSF and putting an end to the dual and phantom job holders. The Ministry of Civil Service already started doing well in these aspects.
“By then, only hard working and deserving people will be paid handsomely.
But now we can not improve the wage system as working and nonworking people get the salary and will equally benefit from the rise in the salaries,” al-Sufi said.
He pointed out that the recent rise in price of some foodstuffs is not because some reforms implemented by the government but due to changes in international prices either in foodstuff or means of international transportation.
Consequently, this has affected the price of foodstuffs in Yemen, according to the minister.
He stressed that the parliament when endorsing the 2004 budget, asked the government not to take measures in terms of price reforms which are connected with the economic and administrative reform package without consulting the parliament. This is because these measures must coincide with rise in salaries of fixed-income government employees.
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