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The salary increase for congressmen and senior state officials, which has caused a fierce controversy in the country, also has retroactive effects since January 2020.
The Ministry of Finance reported that the readjustment made was 5.1 percent, which is equivalent to 1,676,000 pesos, and the amount earned by legislators and other senior officials increases from 32,741,000 to 34,417,000 pesos.
The decree indicates that this regulation has “fiscal effects” as of January of this year.
(See also: The three political scandals that shook the country this 2020)
That is, legislators will not only receive an increase from their next allowance, but in the next check they will receive a retroactive one, since the increase covers the 12 months of this year. In this way, the parliamentarians, who are currently on vacation, will receive about 20 million pesos retroactively. The benefit applies to 280 members of the Colombian Parliament.
This figure must be multiplied by the 280 congressmen who are part of the Colombian Parliament.
So far, both the ‘La U’ Party and the Democratic Center have rejected this increase and announced that the congressmen who are part of these communities will donate the corresponding salary increase.
However, so far they have not raised a position against the retroactive that corresponds to them.
This issue has generated the rejection of a part of public opinion, especially in social networks.
These questions were based, among other reasons, on the various attempts that have been made in the past to reduce the salary of legislators, which have failed.
More than a year ago, for example, the First Committee of the Chamber, in which 38 representatives have a seat, could not debate the project that he sought to freeze the salary of the congressmen because they declared themselves disabled, as the issue directly impacts them.
After that spectacle, with congressmen leaving one after another to avoid voting on the rule, a modification was made to the conflict of interest regime and it was determined that, in those cases, congressmen can only be declared disabled if a rule benefits them, but not if it affects them.
(Also: The drama of migrant women and the LGBTI population in Colombia)
However, even in this way, congressmen have not dared to ‘touch’ their salary.
The idea of reducing the salary of congressmen, which is a striking issue for citizens, has been done in all possible ways: a direct reduction by law, a salary freeze for four years or that legislators, in the middle of the pandemic, renounce your representation expenses (about 14 million pesos). The result has been the same: the projects collapse.
POLITICS
