Committee OKs pay hike for president, ministers

The Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee passed a motion on Tuesday to increase the salaries of the president, vice president, and government ministers.

The decision will result in a MVR 20,000 increment to the president’s salary.

The committee settled on the salaries as follows:

• President: MVR 120,000
• Vice President: MVR 93,000

The vice president currently receives a monthly salary of MVR 75,000.

The committee had initially proposed increasing the salary of government ministers to MVR 72,000, including a basic salary of MVR 53,000. But following discussions, the committee decided to increase the basic salary to MVR 55,000, thereby increasing the total salary to MVR 74,000.

At the meeting, Vilufushi MP Hassan Afeef noted that the salary of president and vice president are declared in a law, and that an increment therefore requires an amendment to the law.

Afeef proposed recommending the repeal of the legal provision that declares the salary of the president and vice president. The proposal passed after other committee members said they did not object to such a recommendation on the committee’s report.

The committee also approved increments to the salaries of judges. As such the committee decided to increase the salary of chief justice to MVR 91,000, and the salary of other justices at the Supreme Court to MVR 89,000.

The committee decided to increase the salary of the chief judge of High Court to MVR 70,000, and other High Court judges to MVR 68,000.

It also decided to increase the salary of chief judges at the Criminal Court, the Civil Court, Family Court and Juvenile Court to MVR 62,000, and the rest of the judges at the superior courts to MVR 60,000.