Pay rise for civil servants

Updated! Latest from The Star:

Govt servants get big raise

PUTRAJAYA: Government servants will get a pay raise of between 7.5% and 35%, effective 1 July, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi announced Monday.

The cost of living allowance will also be increased by 100%, he said.

Members of the police and the armed forces will receive 20% over and above the announced increase in pay.

Looks like it's close to the 10%-40% request made by CUEPACS. With the recent price increase in flour and the upcoming increase of toll rates for PLUS and ELITE, the raise would hopefully go to some extent in alleviating the pain, if it doesn't get negated completely. But why do I have the nagging feeling that my kopi ais kurang manis is going to see a price hike soon?

Update: Malaysiakini in its article on the same subject mentioned Pak Lah as saying there are 4 factors for giving the pay raise:

1. strong GDP growth over the past 5 years averaging around 5.6% per year
2. the need to attract and retain qualified and motivated personnel
3. increase cost of living due to higher oil prices
4. better state of finance for the government

I am not too sure about the the 2nd factor, especially if the government has intention to attract talents regardless of race, because there are various other factors such as glass ceilings. Even with the raise, the still low civil pay would not really stop the continual brain drain of academics and medical doctors from public universities and hospitals. A different remuneration scheme has to be drawn up for these two sets of professionals due to their very different nature compared to the rest of the civil service. In fact, I believe school teachers deserve to have a different scheme as well if we are serious about improving the pathetic state of our education.

Regardless, there would be no stopping people from speculating that this is the clearest signal to date from the government that the elections is near. Coupled with the statement from 2nd Finance Minister Tan Sri Nor Yakcop some weeks back regarding how Budget 2008 would be focused on the wage earners and lower income group (considering the pressure most families in the cities are facing from ever increasing prices of essential goods for the last year or so), I have no doubt that elections fever will strike Malaysia very soon.