Draft budget cuts MK, minister salaries by 10%

Gov't is expected to save NIS 40 million from MKs salaries increase; Liberman: Move symbolic, important at this time.

By LAHAV HARKOV
Cabinet sitting down Knesset 370 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
Cabinet sitting down Knesset 370
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
The new budget proposal lets government officials set a positive example for the rest of the country by slashing their salaries by 10 percent, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Avigdor Liberman said Tuesday.
The budget cuts the salaries of MKs, ministers, the prime minister, the president, mayors, religious authority chairmen and local rabbis by 10 percent. If passed, the pay decrease will begin on June 1 and continue until the end of 2014.
The government will save NIS 40 million from MKs’ salaries alone.
Liberman, who suggested the pay cut last month, congratulated Finance Minister Yair Lapid and called the move “symbolic and important in a time when every citizen of the country feels the burden of the difficult economic situation.”
“It’s clear that the budgetary salvation will not come from the money that will be saved from this move, but it emphasizes in the clearest way possible the fact that every citizen, without discrimination and including the heads of the state contributes his part for the good of stabilizing the Israeli market,” Liberman said.
He said leaders must set an example, and that is what the salary decrease does, and expressed hope that such responsible behavior will bring better economic times.