About 50 employees who are financed from the state budget will have higher salaries of five to 16 percent in two months, as foreseen by the newly adopted law on wages in the public sector.
The adoption of this law was accompanied by a series of controversies, from the fact that the salary increase is coming in an election year, to the fact that no one knows exactly how much the increase will burden the budget or how the necessary money will be found. And while the government claims that the money in the state coffers has already been earmarked, the opposition assures that this is not true and that a new debt awaits us.
The union leaders are more troubled by the fact that the expected increases are miserable, and that the bill for their payment will probably be paid by the poorest again, rather than the epithet of the electoral law.
Ministers, doctors, clerks, educators, plumbers, utility workers, cleaners...all of them, their salaries will increase between five and a half and 16 percent. Coincidentally or not, just a few months before the parliamentary elections. And while the opposition, and partially also the trade union, believe that this is another in a series of manipulations by the government for pre-election purposes, the government says that the increase has been talked about for years, but that it ended up being just this.
"Increasing salaries in the public sector is a current topic not in the last months, but at least in the last two years, which announced the increase in salaries and as the Minister of Finance said, it is a financial arrangement in that area," said Suad Numanović, Minister for Minority and Human Rights rights
"Salaries cannot be increased in the administration in an election year, and the fact is that it is done for election purposes. The new parliamentary majority, with the same majority that voted confidence in the government, also voted yesterday to increase salaries," said Aleksandar Damjanović, SNP MP. -a.
"It is a small increase, considering that we have not had an increase for many years, since 2008, and we have a jump in the prices of both goods and services, which has devalued the household budget in Montenegro. The ideal time if there should be an increase is that precisely that election year, it's probably not a certain coincidence either," explained Srđan Keković, president of the Union of Trade Unions
The moment when pensions and salaries are rising is not the only point of contention for the government and the opposition. The two sides also disagree on whether or not new debt will be necessary due to the increase in wages.
"As a responsible government, and a responsible Ministry of Finance, and a responsible Minister Žugić, of course he planned all these funds in the budget, including the funds that will guarantee salary increases in education and health care," Numanović said.
"That money can only be found by new borrowing, or that money can only be found by increasing new duties, and the question is whether Montenegro has the private sector that can bear it, and by the way, that private sector that no one asked during the adoption of this law ", claims Damjanović.
Union representatives claim that money is easy to find, if the government wants it - by taking care of luxury or by introducing taxes on real estate that is not being used. They emphasize that it is not normal for the state to forgive millions of tax debts for years, and to properly collect every cent from ordinary citizens.
"Not to mention the taxes that are always imposed on citizens and workers, and never on the account of those who have capital in the dog, who live well, and which I guess would be natural, and I'm especially talking about foreign investors, who bring profits from here, should have shared the weight of the economic crisis with the citizens of Montenegro," Keković said.
What remains unknown is how much all the increases will cost us. The state claims that it will not be more than 10 million, the opposition says that it is twice the amount.
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