Salaries of civil servants
This letter is about the report your Dec. 19, 1994 paper carried concerning an expert's complaint on the low salaries of government employees. Is the complaint new? No, indeed it is chronic.
So it was hard to resist the temptation to speculate on how your readers, inured by now, would have reacted. Here is a list, illustrative, not-exhaustive:
* Oh! How good some people are at shedding crocodile tears.
* The report was a plant; an engineered ventilation through a proxy.
* A good ritual. Necessary occasionally to keep the hopes of government employees alive.
* Is their situation really so bad? A trauma or a melodrama or a dilemma.
* Water will always finds its level; if there is a brain- drain, so what? Anyway, the government's loss is the private sector's gain. What is all the griping about?
* Where is the brain to drain? A hyperbole or a delusion.
* Is there a class known as government employees? What is going on? What sort of scam is this? Are they not masters?
* They are paid enough. After all, are they not there only to prove that the Government exists?
* Reminds one of the French Queen's innocent statement: "If they don't have bread why don't they eat cakes." Government employees do just that. How misleading to call this by the horrible name "Corruption."
Such speculations, stemming from exaggerated notions of efficiency in the private sector, are unjust because the simple truth is government and private sectors are not comparable entities. Imagine allowing the tax department to take a commission of 20 percent (like sales commission) on all taxes collected. This would make them more efficient than all private sectors put together. But would anyone put up with this? Look at this way: When you get your car home safely you don't pay a fee to the Police Department, do you? You're not even worried whether or not you pay for what you get, road safety.
So the unpalatable truth is: is it easy to ignore that denials are the lot of government employees, and it is fun to flog them; but harder to pay them. Therefore let us not hurt them by comparing them to private sector employees who are just tools programmed to make money, not serve.
So, the bottom line is: Government employees must be paid better because they merit it; not because they suffer in comparison. And the delicious irony is, by doing so, it is the public at large that will be the main beneficiary, not government employees, who can never be paid what they deserve.
G.S. EDWIN
Jakarta