Lawmakers' draft bill to bump salaries, privileges
The draft bill seeks an increase in the salaries of Senate chairman and NA speaker to Rs879,000
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – The Parliamentarians have drafted a bill to increase their salaries and privileges in proportion to the rising inflation, which will be presented in the Senate on Monday.
The Senate has included three draft bills in its agenda for the Monday’s private members day, seeking massive increase in salaries, perks and privileges of the Senate chairman, deputy chairman and NA speaker and deputy speaker besides members of the parliament despite repeated calls for austerity by Prime Minister Imran Khan.
The bill demanded the salaries of Senate chairman, deputy chairman and NA speaker and deputy speaker equivalent to judges of the Islamabad High Court (IHC).
The draft bill seeks an increase in the salaries of Senate chairman and National Assembly speaker from Rs225,000 to Rs879,000 to match the salaries of Supreme Court judges and a rise in the remuneration of the Senate deputy chairman and National Assembly deputy speaker to match those of high court judges.
The bill also seeks to increase the salaries of members of the parliament from Rs150,000 to Rs300,000. It also calls for the travel allowance of parliamentarians to be increased to cover the cost of business class air tickets and AC class train tickets.
The bill further seeks 25 business class tickets to be allocated for each lawmaker.
On the other hand, the government and Pakistan Peoples Party opposed a bill requesting to increase salaries of lawmakers.
Speaker of National Assembly Asad Qaiser has termed the proposed raised in salaries as ‘unreasonable’ and said that country has not come out of economic crises yet. He urged lawmakers to demand increase in salaries when national exchequer can afford it.
Deputy Chairman Senate Saleem Mandviwala distanced himself from the proposed bill and said that he did not voice his support for increase in salaries. He urged government to provide relief to poor people instead of raising their salaries.
Federal Minister Asad Umar tweeted that news regarding senate resolution on raising salaries of lawmakers is incorrect and increasing privileges of public representatives in current circumstances is inappropriate.
Senator Faisal Javed from PTI said that the party and its senators will oppose the bill. He added that Prime Minister Imran Khan has continuously requested government officials to not spend extravagantly from national funds.
Meanwhile, PPP has decided to strongly oppose the proposed bill. Sherry Rehman tweeted, “We will not support the bill on the salary increase for parliamentarians. This is a time of great economic crisis for the people of Pakistan and not the time to for us to start matching our salaries with the region or others. Public money needs to be spent on public relief right now.”
