There will be no salary increase for the officers of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces, says Commander Major General Ro Jone Kalouniwai.
Responding to media queries, Maj-Gen Kalouniwai cleared the air on salary progress and the misconception within the force of its budget allocation.
“There is no change to our salaries in terms of the budget allocation,” he said.
“I think there is some misconception with the budget and a lot of people are saying there’s an increase.
“There was a relatively known increase by the government.”
He said most people were not aware that the $169.6 million allocated to the RFMF in the budget also included the peacekeeping allocation.
“What the government has done they’ve just put together our peacekeeping budget and our (general) budget.”
He said for the RFMF to reconsider a salary increase, they would have to conduct a job evaluation review followed by a government endorsement.
He said, despite enquiries for an increase, the timing was not right.
“The timing is not right, i think there is a lot of priorities that Government needs to be addressing right now.
“For us to raise our salaries is not proper and we don’t have the budget as well to cater for that.”
In the 2024-2025 National Budget announcement, Finance Minister Biman Prasad revealed that salary based civil servants would receive a pay rise ranging from seven to 10 per cent while wage earners were set to see increments between 10 and 20 per cent.
