Myanmar government employees to receive wage hike
YANGON, March 27 Kyodo
Myanmar government employees will have their remuneration raised to five times their basic salary with the introduction of a special allowance, government officials said Monday.
The State Peace and Development Council, the ruling junta, issued instructions Monday to government ministries and offices to introduce the allowance with immediate effect, the officials said.
Lowest-ranking government employees currently receive 600 kyat, while top officials receive 3,000 kyat. Under the new arrangement, lowest-ranking officials will get an overall monthly remuneration of 3,000 kyat while top officials will get 15,000 kyat.
The officials said the measure was introduced because civil servants are seeing their incomes eroded by rising consumer prices.
The official consumer price index in Yangon, with 1986, the base year, at 100, jumped from 155 in 1988-89 to 1,762 in 1998-99, a more than 11-fold increase in 10 years.
Various government ministries have been providing subsidies to officials in the form of essential consumer goods such as rice.
While the dollar buys about 6 kyat at the official exchange rate, the black market rate is about 300 kyat. ($1=3.3420 kyat)
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