It seems that the Treasury Department, a year ago, had issued a net monthly increment of about Lm4 to these employees, which at the time were listed as scale 16 civil servants. Since then these workers have received a promotion to scale 15 and as a consequence lost the increment pertinent to scale 16.

The measure only affects clerks that have been employed in 1998. Their wage has only changed marginally as a result of the promotion but their promotion ultimately meant that they should not receive an increment.

It seems that the notice of these clerks’ promotion, made in August 2003, only reached the Treasury last month. As a consequence the department had to deduct the increment given during the previous 14 months.

The clerks were given no explanation, not even that the increment was given to them by mistake. Usually, besides receiving an explanatory note beforehand and a covering letter with the pay slip, money from such “mistakes” is recovered over some months and not subtracted suddenly, one of the clerks said.

The cut is quite considerable given the fact that these clerks are among the least paid civil servants, with a net monthly pay of Lm288.66 of which Lm46 were subtracted, bringing October’s pay check down to Lm242.72.

The problem, an affected clerk told TMID, is that a number of these clerks are young people, most of whom have financial commitments with the bank to meet. The cut is a blow to their cash flow and creates more hassles than one could imagine. “Moreover,” she said, “all this could have been avoided if the cut was staggered, as is usually done in these cases.”

TMID contacted the Treasury Department for comments, but the person responsible was on leave. Unofficial sources at the Treasury said that it was the responsibility of the salaries department of the respective government entities with which these employees work to send the notification.

When contacted, however, Joseph Schembri, from the Education Division salaries department – one of the departments hit by this decision – said that their department did not know about the deduction and as a consequence could not notify the affected clerks working with the division.