New pay scale for govt staff runs into delay

Government employees will have to wait another month for a new pay
scale, as Finance Minister AMA Muhith said yesterday it would come
along with the final salary structure for the judicial service. "The
announcement of the new pay scale is taking time as we have received
a report on the judicial service later," the minister said in a press
briefing at the Economic Relations Division (ERD) . The new pay scale
will fall in line with all proposed salary reports. According to an
earlier plan, the pay scale was expected to come out this month. The
minister spoke to reporters a second time after his return from the
World Bank- International Monetary Fund annual meeting in Istanbul.
The judiciary is independent, and the service cadre will get a
separate pay scale, Muhith said. "But it doesn't mean the judiciary
pay scale will be abnormally higher than other service holders. " The
government has planned to make a new civil service law to improve
governance as part of its reform effort. The new Civil Service Act --
if put in place -- will abolish forced retirement. "But it's not
final yet. The government will take into account opinions of all
stakeholders before finalising the law," Muhith said. In another
disclosure, the minister said the government would revise the annual
development programme (ADP) by December, which traditionally comes
out in the March-April period. The ministries, which are implementing
ADP faster, will get more allocations after a revision in December,
he said. Muhith said it might not be possible to increase public
investment massively in development works. "We are looking for
private and foreign investments," he said. ERD Secretary Mosharraf
Hossain Bhuiyan described some bilateral meetings with donor
representative on the sidelines of the World Bank (WB)-IMF annual
meeting in the Turkish city. He said the WB had stopped funding the
road sector reform project in Bangladesh. When Bangladesh urged the
WB to continue financial support, WB officials replied that the
support depend on what action Bangladesh would take against
corruption in the project, Bhuiyan said.