Bonuses for Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti civil servants − a deserved reward?
The new management of a bulk of the Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti regional municipalities carries on a fallacious practice of its forerunners by issuing bonuses to the employees without any justification.
Public information obtained from the administrative authorities demonstrates that during the first three months of 2013 total of 775,328 GEL were issued in bonuses in the Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti self-government units. As for the Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti Regional Administration, it has not issued bonuses this year at all.
Issuing of bonuses was again accompanied by improper tendencies, namely:
-
A bonus is issued by ignoring the requirements of law – without due justification;
-
It is unclear for which special contribution and merits do the public servants receive bonuses;
-
In addition, the principle of determining the amount of bonuses is vague.
A table below illustrates the concrete number of bonuses:
|
Gamgeoba/City Hall |
Bonus |
Sakrebulo |
Bonus |
|
Zugdidi |
214153 |
Zugdidi |
84830 |
|
Abasha |
160680 |
Abasha |
45440 |
|
Senaki |
91990 |
Senaki |
24440 |
|
Martvili |
90410 |
Martvili |
18660 |
|
Mestia |
16080 |
Mestia |
10735 |
|
Poti |
0 |
Poti |
17910 |
|
Tsalenjikha |
0 |
Tsalenjikha |
0 |
|
Khobi |
0 |
Khobi |
0 |
|
Chkhorotsku |
0 |
Chkhorotsku |
0 |
|
Total |
573313 |
Total |
202015
|
As the table demonstrates, in case of Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti the established practice of issuing bonuses is still retained.
Further, the Zugdidi Municipality Sakrebulo made a decision at its 17 April 2013 sitting to issue another monetary allowances/bonuses to the public servants of the Gamgeoba and the Sakrebulo in connection with the Easter holidays.
For several years now Transparency International Georgia reports on the fallacious practice of issuing bonuses in the public institutions, which clearly gives a hand to spending of the state budgetary funds in a non-transparent manner. Notwithstanding the fact that issuing of bonuses is often driven by the low salaries in the public service and the objective to attract qualified staff, we believe that solving this problem within legal frameworks is rather simple. In particular, it is necessary to determine the salary rate of servants in such a manner that would introduce a more flexible and transparency rule for issuing it. Otherwise, general public will always question such a faulty practice.