The Senate has passed its Chairman, and the Speaker of the National Assembly, pay raises which would bring their salaries at par with that of judges of the Supreme Court. The bill now only needs passage by the National Assembly to go to the President for assent. The measure was rejected in 2020, when it also included a doubling of salaries for members, from Rs 150,000 a month to Rs 300,000. The reason for rejection sounds familiar, and no one would say that the situation has changed: economic slowdown. Now the raises are not for ordinary members, but only for the presiding officers. The timing of the move seems a little odd, for not only is there no sudden urgency, but the passage comes hot on the heels of the presentation of the Budget, which has seen a spell of belt-tightening (about Rs 80 billion worth) as well as the imposition of new taxes, all to get the IMF to restore its existing programme.
There have been arguments advanced for these pay raises, and they may be correct. But with the economy in the shape it is in, it does not seem a very good idea. After all, are elected officials in it for the money, or to serve people? If, as the PTI clamours, they are in it for corruption, there seems something massively wrong not only to send someone to Parliament so that he can embezzle public money, and pay him handsomely into the bargain. It should not be forgotten that even the existing packages enjoyed by the Speaker and the Chairman are nothing to sneeze at. If, as the ruling coalitions, they are paragons of honesty, they would seem insensitive to vote themselves a pay raise at a time when Parliament is busy passing a lot of additional taxation.
The measure is a bad one, and should be quietly dropped rather than rushed onto the legislative agenda for the National Assembly, whose last six weeks should be occupied by more substantial legislation than salary raises for presiding officers. Insensitive legislators could at least begin to make a pretence of caring about the plight of the common man by treating public money as if it was meant to be spent on presiding officers.
