BI chief to end up as highest paid official
BI chief to end up as highest paid official
Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Bank Indonesia (BI) board of governors will become the
highest paid state officials in the country, with its top chief
expecting to bring home at least Rp 141.32 million (US$14,420)
per month.
BI Governor Burhanuddin Abdullah said on Tuesday the board
shared tasks with the state and the House of Representatives to
apply an efficient budget, but added that major changes in the
pay packages would disrupt the central bank's overall
remuneration system.
To make the pay package somewhat more palatable for the
public, he said, BI would instead cut several additional
allowances, which are part of the central bank's 2006 budget
proposal. Those would have pushed the governors' average monthly
salary to Rp 224 million.
The package is comprised of basic salary, a contingency
allowance, a performance allowance and unspecified allowances.
"My proposal is that we take off the two leave allowances, the
three incentives and we get only one holiday bonus," Burhanuddin
stated during a hearing with House Commission XI on finance.
The senior deputy governor is to get Rp 118.26 million per
month, while the six deputy governors will receive Rp 107.28
million each per month.
The amounts will make the BI governors the highest paid state
officials.
Critics, including the President and the Vice President, have
said that the existing remuneration system for state officials
had to be revised in order to comply with the merit system and
the principles of fairness.
A new law on remuneration will likely be enacted soon, with
the President earning the most. As of now, the President's
monthly salary is Rp 62.7 million, the Vice President's is Rp
42.2 million and ministers take home Rp 18.6 million each.
This is the first time for the central bank to consult with
and seek such approval from the House on its remuneration scale
as a consequence of Law No. 3/2004 on Bank Indonesia.
No data was made available on how much BI governors had been
paid each month. Before the enactment of the law, the BI
governors drew up their own salary system.
While it is different than the formulation recommended by
Commission XI, the BI's new proposal will likely be the one that
is applied.
BI's new proposal is 31.6 percent lower than the initial one,
and greater than the 29.8-percent cut recommended by the House
Commission.
In its recommendation, the Commission altered several figures
in allowances and deleted leave allowances. It also proposed that
the monthly performance allowance be optional based on a review
by the House.
But it turned out that Commission members had mistook it as a
performance-based reward, while BI said it was substantially a
sort of functional allowance that comes with their position.
The Commission also warned BI chiefs to be more selective
about foreign trips in 2006, which has reportedly been proposed
to cost Rp 1.4 billion for each, but without severely affecting
BI's work at the international level.
Additionally, the central bank executives often take along
relatives on such trips and pay for their expenses using state
funds, legislators revealed.