According to the National Pay Commission’s president and Finance Minister Mr. Ibrahim Ameer, some employees are not receiving fair pay due to the differences in the pay structure and this issue will be solved within the next year. He has also stated that the current pay structure being followed is from the 1980s; the pay structure committee is working on bringing changes to this and 95% of the work has been completed.
The biggest challenge faced in bringing this change is the Covid-19 situation as there were several delays in the work due to this. However, the commission is working towards completing all the works related to the revision of the pay structure by the end of this year and start implementing the changes from next year.
The National Pay commission was working to change the pay structure to a Harmonize Structure in 2019 and complete it by 2020. However, due to the financial crisis that happened in the pandemic, the commission was forced to delay this process. The changes being brought to the pay structure will also require amendments in the National Budget to meet the increment in employees’ salaries.
According to the Pay Commission’s Secretary-General Dr. Mohamed Faisal, the pending works as of now are allocating jobs according to several skills such as Economists instead of Administrative officers. To bring the amendments to the pay structure, the commission had discussions with different institutions and undertook research. Additionally, they also took advice and consultancy from the education and health sector expertise. After doing proper research, the commission focused on finalizing the best option.
While bringing the changes to the pay structure, the commission highlighted minimizing the discriminations in pay and ensuring that the pay justifies the job role. To do this, the commission looked into the skills required for the job and the risks that are being taken on the job. The commission also believes that a lot of employees are underpaid such as teachers and doctors and there are differences in the pay of employees doing the same job in different offices.
The government wants to bring amendments to the pay structure in different phases to avoid the burden to the budget. The president Mr. Ibrahim Solih has announced to bring changes to the pay structure of teachers and this will be the first phase of implementing the commission’s work. Therefore, next year’s budget allocation will be considering the amendments being brought to the pay structure by the National Pay Commission.
