Call for salary costs to be shown clearly in the budget
LIBYA – University of Benghazi economics professor Attia Al-Fitouri has backed a proposal by the Speaker of the House of Representatives to create a separate chapter for state employees’ salaries in the general budget, which would allow wages to be separated from the other allocations currently listed under Chapter One, titled “Salaries and Equivalent Items”.
Separating wages from ten other items
In a Facebook post, Al-Fitouri explained that under the proposal salaries would have a chapter of their own, while the ten other employee-related items would go into another chapter, splitting the current Chapter One in two.
Tracking salary growth and rates of increase
He said the separation would help researchers and observers measure the trend in spending on salaries and how fast it rises from one year to the next, noting that the details are currently hard to follow because not all the items within the chapter are shown separately.
Adding a new chapter and pinpointing where the problems lie
The move would require adding a new chapter to the budget, he said, adding that he saw no obstacle to this even though, according to him, the state’s financial regulations specify three chapters. He noted that the general budget is currently presented in four chapters and sometimes five.
He argued that separating salaries from the other items would give a clearer picture of how the government spends its money and help identify where the problems lie.
