Moldovan finance ministry provides details about draft of new law on wage payment in public sector

Chisinau, 1 November /MOLDPRES/ - The draft law on the single wage payment system in the budgetary sector was analyzed and got a positive note at a today’s meeting of the national commission for collective consultations and negotiations.    

Finance Minister Octavian Armasu said that the working out of the draft had started in 2017 and was prompted, in particular, by the discrepancy between the highest and the lowest salary in the budgetary sector. By the new draft, all public offices were re-placed on a new wage payment grid and the salaries will be composed of a fixed and a variable component. The ratio between them will be, for most categories of employees, 80 per cent to 20 per cent. Armasu also said that the amendments would give possibility for the salaries to be increased annually and due to the new wage payment rules, no public system employee will receive a wage lower than 2,000 lei.      

„We introduce a single grid in the single wage payment system, made up of 130 wage payment categories. Each category is assigned a coefficient from 1 to 15. Thus, those from the first wage payment level will receive the basic salary, at the level of reference value, which will be 1,500 lei. Those from the 130 wage payment level will receive the basic salary equal to the reference value, multiplied by 15,” the finance minister noted. The reference value for 2019 will be of 1,500 lei, unlike 1,100 lei, as it is at present and the authorities say it will increase in the next years.     

„Some categories of wage earners will deviate from the figure of 1,500 lei, in order to ensure this more efficient transition to the wage payment grid, so that, in 2-3 years, we get that all be at the same level,” Armasu said. At the same time, the minister added that those due to find themselves on a lower stage of wage payment and will have a lower salary than the current one, in 2019 will receive a wage equal to the present one, benefiting from compensations to the salary.  

The enforcement of the new law in 2019 will require an increase in the wage payment fund by 1.2-1.3 billion lei, according to calculations by Finance Ministry decision-makers. Octavian Armasu specified that the new expenses “meet the budget’s possibilities.”  

The authorities are set to make the new enter into force on 1 December 2018, after it is considered by the government and parliament, so that the salaries paid as of January 2019 be calculated according to the new legal provisions. After the law enters into force, three laws will be abrogated and amendments will be made to more legislative acts, in order to bring them in line with the new law.

(Reporter N. Sandu, editor M. Jantovan)