Prague, Feb 21 (CTK) – Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec (Social Democrats, CSSD) criticised yesterday the Finance Ministry’s disapproval of the planned 10-percent rise in the pay of security forces as of July 1.
The Finance Ministry expressed this stance in its comments on the Interior Ministry’s proposal.
Chovanec called the Finance Ministry’s material on the salaries of the police and other security forces an offence of their members and its justification nonsense.
Trade unions have also criticised the stance of the Finance Ministry headed by Andrej Babis (ANO).
Finance Ministry spokesman Michal Zurovec told CTK later that the ministry would like the salaries of security forces to be raised as of next year only and with respect to other civil servants.
The pay rise would cost almost 3.5 billion crowns a year.
“We consider the volume of finances for the salaries of the security forces members sufficient and it has been constantly rising in the past years,” the Finance Ministry said in its comments, rejecting the proposed pay rise.
It argues that the salaries of security forces have increased by 15 percent since 2013 and that the necessary finances for their further rise are not projected in the approved state budget.
Babis has finally stopped hiding his effort to totally weaken and rip apart the security forces, Chovanec wrote to CTK yesterday.
“If the minister claims that police officers, firefighters and other security corps members have sufficiently high salaries, it is nonsense and the expression of disrespect for the people who risk their lives for our safety,” Chovanec wrote.
Independent Police Trade Union head Milan Stepanek also disagrees with the arguments of the Finance Ministry.
He pointed out that the police salaries had decreased by 10 percent in 2011 within the government austerity measures and one year before the police had lost risk bonuses.
The Finance Ministry proposes that the Interior Ministry find the needed sum in its own budget and that the bonuses for years in service be decreased or their calculation reviewed.
This proposal is “at variance with law and the government policy, and moreover, beyond any decent behaviour,” Chovanec said.
The base salaries of security forces are set by a government directive that the Interior Ministry wants to modify as of mid-2017.
Chovanec said he would like the government to distance itself from the Finance Ministry’s stance.
Some 40,000 people work in the police and more than 9700 in the fire corps. The pay rise would apply to customs officers, prison guards and intelligence officers as well.
Along with the pay rise, the Interior Ministry plans other measures to improve the work of security forces, for instance, to abolish the duty of 150 overtime hours a year without the right to compensatory leave or remuneration except for emergency situations.
($1=25.449 crowns)
