The salary revision for employees of State-Owned Enterprises will be approved before the government’s tenure ends. This is according to Finance Minister Namgay Tshering who says the ministry will be submitting the proposal for salary revision for the SOEs to the Cabinet next week. The current government’s tenure ends on the 31st of this month.
While the revised salary for the civil servants came into effect from July this year, the SOEs under the finance ministry still await the revision.
There are 13 SOEs under the finance ministry.
The SOEs had submitted proposals which included pay hike percentage, expenses for re-engineering, and amount of revenue needed for a pay hike among others to the government in August.
Finance Minister Namgay Tshering said a lot of technical work has to be taken care of when it comes to pay revision for the SOEs under the ministry.
“Since most SOEs are undertaking social mandates, we need to take into consideration that the government needs to put in the equity or the subsidy to support pay raise in the socially mandated SOEs. Having said that not all SOEs are also loss-making. For instance, Bhutan Duty-Free, Bhutan Lottery, and Bhutan Development Bank are self-sustaining SOEs. So, they can manage to withstand the salary revision within their own means,” said the finance minister.
“So, I think the government of the day has to be very careful because if we say that your salary revision is dependent on your financial performance, then most of the SOEs will be not eligible for the pay raise. So, for that matter, I think a lot of balancing work has to be done. We are currently doing that work.”
However, the minister said that revision in terms of the percentage is still uncertain as the final decision has to be made by the Cabinet.
The civil servants saw an increase of 55 to 74 per cent in the minimum pay scale across all position levels after the revision.
“I think SOEs should not be panicking because the revision is going to come at any cost. Since we have started the whole initiative and since we have already given the salary of the civil servants, I think everyone is facing the brunt of the increasing living cost. So, for that matter, SOEs will not be left alone or left aside,” said Lyonpo Namgay Tshering.
The minister added that the ministry is also working on revising wage rates for the National Work Force. The proposal for the National Work Force will be submitted along with the proposal for the SOEs to the Cabinet for endorsement.
Samten Dolkar
Edited by Phub Gyem
