BB staff protest incentive bonus based on old pay scale
More than 100 employees of the central bank yesterday protested a decision of the Bangladesh Bank board to provide incentive bonus for fiscal 2016-17 based on the pay scale of 2015.
The incentive bonus was approved at a board meeting held at the BB headquarters on Sunday -- a decision that drove employees to stage demonstrations on the central bank premises.
At present, the BB employees get their salaries and other benefits based on the current pay scale that came into effect in July last year, so their incentive bonus should be in line with that too, they said.
"There is no ground for giving bonus according to the previous scale when all the facilities are being given using the new scale," they said.
Besides, the use of 2015's pay scale will deprive those who have been serving the banking regulator from 2016, they added.
At one point during the course of the day, a group of the agitated employees met with BB Governor Fazle Kabir demanding the use of the current pay scale.
At the board meeting on Sunday, three of the four board members present were against the idea of extending incentive bonus based on the new pay scale, said an official of the central bank seeking anonymity due to sensitivity of the matter.
The new pay scale, they said, did not afford any special benefit to government employees.
The board approved five incentive bonuses, each being the basic pay.
Also at the meeting, the central bank's annual report for fiscal 2016-17 was approved. The regulator's operating profit last fiscal year stood at Tk 541 crore, down 30 percent from a year earlier.
The BB's earnings from foreign currency accounts soared 48.36 percent to Tk 2,813 crore, while earnings from local currency accounts slumped 31 percent to Tk 1,107 crore. Its annual expenditure surged 24 percent to Tk 3,379 crore, the report shows.
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