translated from Spanish: ADP proposes reform to raise ministers’ salaries: “They must earn a higher proportion to MPs”

“If you look at the international experience, what you find is that in oecd countries state ministers earn on average 40% more compared to the lower houses, or deputies, then here (there was) an externality that is that ministers saw a more substantive reduction than it corresponded,” said the President of the Council of Senior Public Management (ADP) , Alejandro Weber, on the rebate applied to the remuneration of parliamentarians and ministers, which meant that some undersecretaries are earning more than the ministers out of the legal regulations that departed in August.
According to the first unofficial calculations, there would be cases where an undersecretary could earn $400,000 more than his boss. This after the change that forces you to cut gross income from $9,349,853 to $7,012,390 million was defined.
“That is indeed a distortion of reform and we were clear about it. Now, at the time of analyzing our report, all the executive’s political authorities had a 10% reduction: President, undersecretaries, mayor and governors, because we believed that this was the rebate that that line had to have. Therefore, this distortion of dragging ministers through parliamentarians, we (face it and) make proposals to resolve them in the medium term: one, to move forward with a constitutional reform that amends Article 62 which says that senators, deputies and ministers earn the same, so our proposal is that ministers should earn a higher proportion than parliamentarians earn” , secured on Radio Universe.
He also said there will be “other modifications that are legal and involve setting up an assignment to ministers. Let us remember that they have an individual, personal responsibility for the functions they exercise and also a political responsibility. The position is much more volatile than parliamentarians and we note that they have a significant opportunity cost. All of this sets up a reform that we propose and that we will send to the Congress, the Executive and the standing committee that is established,” he said.
“The ADP function proposes raising salaries of public ministers is a very complex interaction between genuine vocation and public service. (…) it is necessary that this function is exercised with fair remuneration for the task determined and that is fundamental to professionalize. If we have very low pay, what we end up doing is the loss of talent attraction and a difficulty retaining talent.” Explained.
“We have higher volatility (in the case of ministers), turnover is very high, parliamentarians cannot resign and have at least 4 years in office. Ministers are not, rotation is around a year and a half and there is a complex situation. It is also true that the high authorities receive a non-monetary remuneration which is the honour of being ministers, of serving the country, of responsibility in public policies and therefore everything is a complex balance and sometimes the public debate is oversimplified.” “The invitation I make is to look at this in a systemic, comprehensive way, there are many variables, not only economic remuneration, also non-monetary, but it must be done respins responsible and in the long run. It is necessary to implement good public policies balancing fiscal austerity but also being able to bring talent to implement the transformations that the most vulnerable need because Chile is going to be a poorer country.”

Original source in Spanish