Media Release

8 November 2001

Top Civil Servants Salaries Obscene- Donnelly

New Zealand First MP, Hon Brian Donnelly, labeled the recent Annual Report of the State Services Commission, “an insult to taxpayers and irrefutable evidence that the Labour/Alliance government has no greater interest in reining in ‘those up to their tonsils in the taxpayers trough’, than did the previous National government”.

“Where is the justification in paying over $200,000 in salary to the CEO of a Ministry that delivers nothing more than $4.29 million of policy advice. Why are we paying over $160,000 to the CEO of a Ministry that delivers only $2.7 million of departmental outputs,” Mr Donnelly asked.

“Principals of largish schools have salary bills greater than that and yet we pay them far less,” he said.

“It is a disgrace that a Labour/Alliance government should on the one hand be urging nurses and teachers to accept pay increases far less than the rate of inflation while the salaries of fat cat public servants are being allowed to climb further out of control,” said Mr Donnelly.

“As for the 21 chief executives being paid more than a quarter of a million dollars a year, are we seriously to believe that the majority of these people could not have been recruited for far less. They certainly wouldn’t be headhunted by the corporate sector,” he suggested.

“Why are taxpayers funds being used to reward individuals whose worth in their own eyes far exceeds their worth in the eyes of the taxpayer. Why is this government, which purports to represent people who must struggle on a pittance, prepared to maintain a system of largesse for those sitting at the top of the state service,” asked Mr Donnelly.

ENDS

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