ATFPM: Civil servants’ wage increase ‘not satisfactory’

The SAR government has increased salaries of the civil servants by 3.5 percent this month, following calls for wage increase due to inflation.

From January 1, the public workers’ remuneration index was increased from 85 to 88 points. 

In October last year, the Macau Civil Servants Association (ATFPM) called on the government to increase the salary of civil servants by five percent in 2019, with a group of 10 members from the association visiting the government headquarters to express their opinions.

According to ATFPM’s president Pereira Coutinho, the association submitted a document to the Chief Executive (CE) that mentioned the inflation Macau had experienced since the handover, calculating the total wage increase the SAR granted to civil servants.

The document listed that there is still a 4.6 percent inflation that has not been covered by the public servants’ salary increases.

“We requested a 5 percent increase to cover that 4.6 percent. Still, it is not satisfactory to the civil servants because the rise in the pricing of the main essential goods is really very high. Macau is a very costly city,” Coutinho told the Times, explaining that housing rents remain a big burden to residents, especially those paying mortgages in the bank.

Meanwhile, Coutinho also previously requested the government to build some 80,000 public housing units for civil servants.

Since no reply was given towards such request, the lawmaker criticized the government for failing to build public housing since 1999.

“Besides that, we must understand that the government has not built a single house since the handover [for civil servants]. All the houses given in these past years are the remaining ones from the Portuguese administration,” he said.

As the Chief Executive’s (CE) term is about to end in December 2019, the lawmaker believes that the city’s only hope for the request is through the incoming top official.

He recalled that Chui Sai On pledged that the government was evaluating the situation and that it was open to the idea.

The call was given to the Secretary for Public Administration to study the feasibility of the project, along with the Secretary for Transport and Public Works to check whether it would allocate land to build housing units.

“We requested but the government has not constructed a single unit, and not a single house was constructed for the civil servants,” Coutinho said.

Questioned whether progress would be made before the CE ends his term, the lawmaker said, “I don’t think so because this CE does not seem to be deciding on big issues, so our hope remains on the next CE,” he added.

Coutinho recalled that during the Portuguese administration, there were at least 10 buildings that were constructed specifically for civil servants.

Meanwhile, Coutinho also expressed his discontent with the elimination of funds for civil servants.

“That is a wrong decision. We think that the government should give pension funds [especially] for the public security officers so they can have more stability and job security, especially when they retire,” he commented.