By Tabora Bojang
Reliable sources have informed The Standard that the government is planning a 30-percent pay rise in salaries of civil servants in the 2025 budget, estimates of which will be tabled in the National Assembly on Friday.
Our source also added that the estimates contain proposals for increment of other allowances for junior grade servants.
However, our source could not confirm whether pensioners will benefit from the increment.
If confirmed by the Minister of Finance on Friday, the measure would be widely welcomed amid calls for good pay for the rest of the civil servants following what many perceived to be ‘fat wage increments’ for the executive, legislature and judiciary.
The minister of the civil service Baboucarr Bouy told lawmakers in July that his ministry had reviewed the current integrated pay scale and introduced new pay scale options for consideration by the cabinet but “due to its cost implications and the realisation of a tight fiscal space, the increment plan was suspended until the revenue situation of the government improves.”
The last time salaries were increased across the civil service was in the 2022 revised budget. Also, a 30-percent increment which economic observers say leaves the high-income earners such as president, ministers and directors better off than the vast majority on low wages.
According to a parliamentary source, the government initially planned to increase salaries by 100 percent, but they were cautioned against that by the International Monetary Fund.
As a result, a 30-percent increment has been agreed and was included in the budget. It also remains to be seen if pensioners will benefit from the increment since they were excluded from the 30-percent increment in 2022 with Finance Minister Seedy Keita explaining that the pensioners were excluded because their pensions were “increased by 100 percent in 2018 which resulted in an income mismatch between them and active employees.”
