Trusting the government [Archives:2005/873/Viewpoint]
Editor
The new salaries strategy that aimed at defining the minimum salaries range for public sector employees has been fluctuating tremendously from one corner to the other, dragging with it the hanging eyes of the Yemeni citizens waiting for God's mercy to land on the Yemeni land. The decline from 20- thousand to 15.5 as the minimum salary for employees has caused many people to lose whatever trust they had in their government. Coupled with the conflicts among financial officials to the extent that some are rejecting the salary raises under the pretext that it was not included in the 2005 annual national budget, ignoring the fact that this budget was increased significantly because of the increase in oil prices worldwide.
Nevertheless, the official media in this context has been launching a wide campaign assuring the public regarding the salary increase and that it would start from next month with financial compensation for a period of two months for July and August when the oil subsidies were lifted causing high increase in the basic commodities.
Radio and TV interviews by officials target the nervous citizens in order to assure them that the government “knows better”, that the price hikes are actually in the people's best interest, and that there will be an increase in the salaries to cope with price hikes. Of course, the government knows better, especially that this salary strategy cost the government more than three million US dollars according to sources.
It is thought that the Ministry of Finance will come forward with a proposal to the parliament for the ratification of an increase in the Ministry's budget by 400 billion rials in order to implement this strategy, which is about 50% of the national budget for the republic. Apparently, this new proposal comes after the parliament has approved an increase of 92 billion rials for the same, which was seen by the promise of increasing the maximum scale for salaries went down from eightfold to threefold only.
A very funny story goes around the Yemeni community regarding living conditions as it says there was an atheist person who did not believe in God until that person came to Yemen and saw how Yemenis are surviving with their current conditions. How Yemenis squeeze their income to barley cover their basic needs in addition to the Qat addiction is still a mystery to many. Perhaps the government is relying on the mysterious ways of Yemeni people to survive while planning their feeble economic strategies. Moreover, while many people still doubt there will be any increase in their salaries at the end of September, the comedy at the Ministry of Finance still goes on, confirming only one truth, God is here in Yemen!
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