The new salary structure approved by the government for public sector employees on Monday could lead to a slight increase in inflation, says Prime Minister's Information and Broadcasting Advisor Zahed Ur Rahman.
He said, "Inflation is very high now, isn't it? It’s high. The inflation rate in Bangladesh has been high for a long time. In a country like ours, of course, there should be some inflation. If it's up to 5 percent, up to 6 percent, then it's good or okay.
"But for us, it has reached double digits, even crossed it. At the moment, it has decreased a little, at least that's what our data says."
The information advisor was speaking at a weekly press conference on the progress of different government projects in the conference room of the Press Information Department at the Secretariat on Tuesday.
Zahed said that raising the salaries of such a large number of public-sector employees could fuel inflation, adding that many senior employees have already reached close to the proposed pay levels through regular increments, reports bdnews24.com.
“So, a lot of money will reach the people, but there are concerns about where the government will meet this expenditure, about where the money will come from, but while (the expenditure will increase, the government has a budget for that expenditure). It is not that the inflation rate increasing is impossible. There is a possibility of inflation increasing a bit.”
Regarding the implementation of the new salary structure, Advisor Zahed said: “The new pay scale has been announced, and a roadmap has been given on how it will be implemented step by step.
“I would like to mention two very significant findings. One is that if an employee has a child with special needs, he will get a monthly allowance of Tk 3,000. I claim this is a very groundbreaking step.”
He said, “I am not saying that Tk 3,000 is a lot of money. I am not saying that all problems can be solved with it. But we know that these children with special needs need special care, treatment, special schools. The state, this government, is recognising all this, and it will help them to some extent.
“We hope that as the state’s capacity increases—when the state recognises something that people are suffering from, they recognise that people have needs—we can hope that the amount of this allowance will increase soon. This is a very big deal.”
Regarding the salaries and allowances of government employees at the Grade-1 level, he said, “The second thing is that there has always been a reasonable criticism regarding the ratio between our Grade-1 - this calculation is available all over the world; if you search for it, you can find it - and the last grade—what is their compensation ratio? It is very high in Bangladesh, huge. The lower it is, the better.”
Stating that the government is trying to reduce the difference, Zahed said: “You will see that there is also an effort to reduce this disparity. The first 10 grades will increase step by step to a maximum of 100 percent, and the next 10 grades will increase up to 142 percent.
“Then the gap, the ratio, that we had between Grade-1 and Grade-20 will decrease. I think this is also a step to reducing inequality.”