Prague, Sept 15 (CTK) – A 10-percent rise in the Czech police and firefighters’ wages as of November will cost some 451 million crowns this year and 2.9 billion in 2018, according to the government order prepared by the Interior Ministry and released to CTK.
The ministry points out that this sum only includes the spending on the police and firefighters’ pay. However, the budgets of the General Inspection of Security Corps (GIBS), the Prison Service, the Customs Authority and the civilian counter-intelligence service (BIS) must also be raised accordingly, it says.
Individual ministries can now send comments on the pay rise decree.
The government should deal with it together with a draft state budget for 2018.
The wages of police, firefighters and other security corps members were risen by 10 percent last time in July.
During the four years in office, the outgoing centre-left government of PM Bohuslav Sobotka’s Social Democrats (CSSD), ANO and Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) increased their pay by 25 percent, that is some 5,000 crowns a month on average.
The police corps is comprised of about 40,000 people, while the fire corps has more than 9,700.
The average pay of police officers and firefighters was some 35,000 crowns before the rise.
The pay rise in the public sector has been a hot political issue of late.
The government coalition agreed at the beginning of the week on a 15-percent pay rise for teachers and a 10-percent rise for other employees in the public sector as of November.
However, the public sector employees’ trade unions are still on strike alert until the government approves the decree on the pay rise.
