Parliament salaries

ALTHOUGH it was rejected by the majority in the upper house, it was a bad idea in the first place to attempt to table three bills seeking a raise in the salaries of lawmakers in the National Assembly and Senate.

The proposed bills came at a time when the government is stridently calling on the rest of the country to sacrifice in the name of stabilising the economy. Indeed, it is difficult to find someone in Pakistan these days who has not suffered a cut in their salary; a recent poll shows that four out of 10 respondents said they personally knew somebody who had lost his or her job. Not only that, people are suffering from higher taxes and rising inflation even as their own incomes drop.

Squeezed from all sides, it is hard to understand why a proposal was made to increase the salaries of the speaker of the National Assembly and the Senate chair by almost 400pc.

It was also recommended that the salaries of the deputy Senate chair and deputy National Assembly speaker be similarly increased, besides upping the pay of the rest of the parliamentarians. Not only that, the proposal also sought 25 business class local airfares to be given to parliamentarians for official travel, and, strangely, to be made available for use to families of the parliamentarians as well.

No doubt, the remuneration of parliamentarians is insufficient as a living which means only those who have independent sources of money can actually afford to become lawmakers — and at some point these salaries may need to be revised, but this is not the time.

The PTI did the right thing to distance itself from the bill, which was introduced by six senators, four of whom are independent though one serves as chief whip of the ruling party, and one senator each from the PML-N and National Party.

They have a point that the pay structure discriminates against those who are forced to rely on their remuneration to pay their bills, but they must understand that at a time of such tremendous austerity and hardship for the rest of the country, such proposals send out the wrong signal and are unlikely to find support.

Perhaps those lawmakers who are not from rich backgrounds and can’t make ends meet through parliamentary salaries alone can find another way to explain their difficulties to the house without making it look like they are capriciously seeking luxuries at the taxpayers’ expense. And at a time, when they should be ready to perhaps even relinquish some of the perks they already receive, asking for round-trip business class tickets for themselves and their families is an insensitive demand.

For now, Pakistan’s MNAs and senators ought to have no choice but to share the current economic hardship with the rest of the country.