Special commission limits salary bills for government positions
Cabinet spokesperson has said government has established Special Commission on Salaries to address inordinate amounts of salary bills, a scandal which had provided food for the critics of government among the media.
Mohammad Bagher Nobakht who was speaking in his weekly press conference on Tuesday, specifically focused on the workings of Special Commission on Salaries, a body organized by government to bring order to the salary bills of high government positions; “the first step was to lay off 13 such directors whose salary bills contained the most coveted amounts and whom had been the most favored by the corrupt system of payments and exceptions to national rules of payments; apart from this, we returned inordinate sums to the public treasury; we examined the issue to find that only 30-40 such directors enjoyed ‘galaxy figures’ in their salary bills,” he told the press.
“Some of payments however, in the second consideration, had been legal, that is, some exceptions set aside such directors from restrictions to the maximum amount paid, and in economic firms the government had the least control over; now a Special Commission on Salaries rules out the possibility of inordinate salary bills through setting a maximum of salaries in all government organizations,” Nobakht detailed. “According to the Commission decisions, political directors should not receive more than $ 2860 monthly, with other directors in high places receiving no more than $ 5400 per month; directors of factories should not receive more than three times their salaries, that is, $ 5400 per month,” Nobakht told the press. “Any salary containing more than such figures would be illegal and lawsuit could be filed against such cases by the government.”
On the question of court trying the perpetrators who attacked and set fire on Saudi Embassy in the aftermath of Mina incident in Mecca last year, Nobakht believed that the consequences and the damage accrued upon national interests was no less important than the inordinate salaries of a few government officials; “we have condemned any move that would jeopardize government position in international arena. We believe Saudi Arabia found opportunity to shift the blame during Mina incident and attacking the embassy throw Iran at the spotlight of events which was not to our national interests,” he concluded.
