Dhaka – Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) has welcomed the Cabinet’s approval of a new national pay scale for government employees, but urged the government to make annual disclosure of income, expenditure and assets a mandatory condition for its implementation.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, TIB said government employees and their dependent family members should be required to update and publicly disclose their financial and asset information every year before receiving the benefits of the new pay structure.
TIB Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman said the decision to implement the new pay scale in three phases was reasonable despite the government’s financial constraints. However, he said it would be difficult to expect the highest level of professional performance and corruption-free public service if government salaries and allowances remained out of line with the rising cost of living.
He stressed that the pay increase, funded by taxpayers’ money, should be accompanied by stronger transparency and accountability measures.
According to TIB, only employees who regularly update and publish their income, expenditure and asset declarations should be eligible for the increased salaries and allowances. Those who fail to comply should not receive the benefits of the new pay scale, the organisation argued.
Iftekharuzzaman said such a condition would help strengthen transparency and accountability while reducing corruption and harassment in public services.
He also acknowledged that many government employees perform their professional duties honestly and without engaging in irregularities or corruption. For them, he said, the new pay scale was both justified and necessary. However, he argued that extending the same benefits to those who accumulate illicit wealth through corruption, irregularities and abuse of power would be unjustified.
TIB warned that implementing the new pay scale across the board without effective accountability mechanisms could lead to a further rise in corruption in the public sector.
Referring to the government’s expectation that the new pay structure would improve financial security, motivation and efficiency among public employees, Iftekharuzzaman noted that similar expectations existed when the eighth pay scale was introduced in 2015. He claimed that irregularities, corruption and bribery had nevertheless increased in government institutions in the years that followed.
He called for mandatory asset disclosure as a globally tested mechanism for controlling corruption in the public sector and expressed hope that the latest pay reform would produce a different outcome.
TIB also expressed concern that higher government salaries and allowances could contribute to rising prices and inflation. The organisation warned that this could further increase the hardship faced by low-income workers and ordinary citizens already struggling with higher living costs.
Against this backdrop, TIB called on the government to implement the new pay scale alongside mandatory annual disclosure of income, expenditure and assets to ensure greater transparency and accountability.
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