Defense Minister Khawaja Asif on Wednesday condemned the hefty increases to the pays of top lawmakers of the Senate and National Assembly, describing it as “financial obscenity.”
“The huge increase in the salaries and financial perks of the [National Assembly] speaker, deputy speaker, Chairman Senate and deputy chairman Senate falls under the category of financial obscenity,” he wrote on X. “Please keep in mind the life of the common man—all our honor and dignity are owed to him,” he added.
Enacted with retrospective effect from Jan. 1, the salaries of the speaker and chairman have been increased over five times to Rs. 1.3 million/month. Additionally, per a notification, they would receive a sumptuary allowance of Rs. 650,000. The dramatic surge in the remuneration has triggered controversy, especially as the government maintains it cannot dedicate more than Rs. 1,000 billion to development projects in the upcoming fiscal year and has offered marginal hikes to salaries of government employees and virtually no relief in taxation to the salaried class.
Reactions to Asif’s statement have been mixed, with some social media users praising him for calling our his fellow lawmakers while others have questioned why he could not convince his “friends” to reject the increases in the public interest.
A day earlier, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb defended the hikes during a post-budget press conference. To a question on the controversy, he claimed the raises were long overdue and their quantum was large because they had been pending since 2016. However, he was unable to justify how the government believed the lawmakers deserved massive raises while it had not amended the minimum wage despite ongoing inflationary pressures.
According to local media, the controversy has prompted Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to take notice of the matter and sought a report on the merits of the raises. It remains unclear how the premier wasn’t already aware of this, as the federal cabinet approved the hike earlier this week.