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Politicians fear a long-standing problem: the question of their own salaries, because talking about money tends to irritate voters.
Caricature or any other low-value gift, the Prime Minister can please his subordinates – the ministers. However, they cannot receive monetary allowances, even if the workload increases considerably. However, other laws already apply to subordinates of the ministers themselves, and no one prohibits them from paying salary supplements. Thus, last year’s pandemic created a strange situation: ministers began to earn more than their leaders.
PHOTO GALLERY. How much do ministers earn and how much do their subordinates earn? The numbers surprise more than one
Vice Ministers and Chancellor of Aurelijus Veryga were able to enjoy the strongest award in the second quarter of last year. If the minister won 2,600 euros “in his hands”, in April-June of last year, the vice ministers and the chancellor of the Ministry of Health were happy with an increase of up to 1,500 euros, 4,200 euros.
“I can honestly say that people work more than a minister. Because it also works on weekends, all the procedures are prepared. The least that can be done is at least pay a supplement to the people,” says the former minister. Health Aurelijus Veryga.
In the third quarter of the year, the salaries of subordinates melted slightly, but still exceeded Veryga’s earnings. Not only that, the director of the department of the ministry and his deputy also earned a thousand more “in their hands” for the boss. The department head’s salary was 3,600 euros.
Something similar happened in the Ministry of Social Security and Labor. If the salary of Linas Kukuraitis, like Veryga’s, amounted to 2,600 euros in his hands, the vice ministers were 70,000 greasy. The Chancellor also won more than 3,000 euros.
“Unlike the minister, the vice ministers, the minister’s team, the officials have weekends, they have nights. For this reason, when they work, they are paid overtime ”, explains the former Minister of Social Security and Labor Linas Kukuraitis.
Still, if officials in these ministries are enthusiastic about the pandemic, how do you explain that the Environment Minister earned less than his subordinates last year?
“My time of service in the public function of both the Chancellor and the Vice Ministers was much longer, therefore, naturally, after recalculating the coefficients, their salary was much higher than mine,” says former Environment Minister Kęstutis Mažeika.
By the way, not only his deputy ministers, the chancellor, but also the director of the department and even the heads of the department received a higher salary than K. Mažeikas. Consequently, if the ministers are young and their subordinates have long experience, in Lithuania the ministers are free to earn less than those they ordain.
“I would not call it disappointing, but I think that the salaries of the ministers are insufficiently low. Some subordinate institutions, the hospital administrators, receive a higher salary than the minister who is responsible for the whole system,” says A. Veryga.
L. Kukuraitis notices the wage differences in Lithuania and neighboring countries.
“The salaries of our ministers are a thousand euros lower than in Latvia. When we tried to raise those issues in the last Seimas, sadly, the Seimas didn’t even want to talk about it. That makes it difficult to find ministers, ”he said.
By the way, the Chancellor of the Government wiped the nose of former Prime Minister Skvernelis himself last year. If the Prime Minister’s salary reaches almost 1,500 euros, Algirdas Stončaitis earned one hundred thousand five hundred more “in his hands”. However, if the government decides to raise politicians’ salaries, it should pass a law in their favor. And the voting politicians simply don’t dare to joke in this way, even though there are attempts once in a period.
“It means telling people that, you know, the ministers or members of the Seimas should increase salaries. As a result, it is not done and it is natural that this salary system is distorted,” says former Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis.
The salaries of politicians and public officials are regulated by different laws. Stasys Šedbaras, the chairman of the Law and Order Committee, also talks about the need to change the order in some way.
“It just came to our attention then. The amount of the compensation is also, perhaps indirectly, but it affects the perception of responsibility,” he says.
However, the rulers do not intend to take concrete action, at least not yet.
“We did not talk to the coalition partners about increasing the salaries of ministers. We have not talked about this specific situation yet, but of course we will discuss it so that there are not such illogical situations,” says Seimas Spokesperson Viktorija Čmilytė- Nielsen.
Last year, finance, energy, justice and culture ministers also earned less than some subordinates.
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