Angry staff miss out on payrise

Source: PS News, March 01, 2011

Ethiopian Public Servants excluded from a recent round of pay rises say the decision to leave them out of the scheme was unfair and had no legal basis.

The Government increased the salaries of most Public Servants by between 35 per cent and 39 per cent, but excluded around 400 employees of the Urban Planning and Information Institute (UPII).

The Agencies forming the UPII received salary adjustments two years ago as the Institute was struggling to hold on to employees as a result of low salaries.
Since these organisations now had separate salary scales they have not been included in the new scheme.

A statement from the Central Statistical Agency (CSA) said the salary increment became effective on 9 January and gave more than one million permanent Public Servants a significant boost in pay.

The only exclusions were contractors and the UPII.
Whether contractors working in permanent positions were to be included in the increment scale is to be decided at a later date.

A disgruntled UPII employee said there was no legal reason for the CSA to prevent them from receiving their rightful share of the increase since the Federal Government had allocated the increment to all permanent Public Servants.

However, some other Public Servants, including those working for the Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority (ERCA) and State Developing Institutions, said they had not received the pay raises yet either.

There are around 66 different salary scales in the Ethiopian Public Service, which adds to the complications.