Out of the 170,059 nationals employed in the private sector and registered with the Public Authority for Social Insurance (PASI), 57 per cent are still paid RO180 or less, even though the minimum monthly wages were fixed at RO200 in March this year.
As per the ministerial decision No 77/2011, the minimum monthly wage for national manpower in the private sector was increased to RO200 (RO180 basic, RO20 allowance) with effect from March 1, 2011.
However, the data available with the authority till March still shows 34,204 employees registered with PASI who were gett-ing RO120 or less, although the number has come down considerably, from 42,439 at the end of February.
Of the total 170,059 employees registered with PASI till March, 115,057 - 67.6 per cent of the total private workforce and the beneficiaries of the new wage law - are paid RO200 or less.
The number of people falling in the salary bracket of RO140-160 stood at 21,001, and in the RO120-140 bracket at 18,138. However, the maximum number of employees - 34,204 - still received RO120 or less, forming 20 per cent of the total private sector workforce registered with PASI.
Meanwhile, PASI is asking all private sector employers to register with it and notify the authority of the increase in basic salaries of their employees by the end of May, after which they will be fined RO5 for each employee per month.
According to an official from PASI, many companies have either not registered with the authority, or in some cases not adhered to the new law, which is why there are still 97,095 employees who receive RO180 or less. The people who received RO160 or less remained at 73,343 at the end of March, forming 43 per cent of the total workforce.
The official said that forms for registering the increase in basic salaries, to be submitted by employers, are available at its headquarters in Azaiba and at its branches. They can also be downloaded from the PASI website. "The process is on, and we request all the companies who have not registered the increase in basic salaries till now to do it immediately. The deadline is May end, after which the company will have to pay a fine of RO5 per month for every employee."
The authority allows registration of a maximum of two salary changes in a calendar year. Any further change can be notified in the January of next year, the
official said.
The authority gets contributions from all the employers - 12,211 registered with PASI till March - and employees, or 'the insured', in return for coverage against old age, disability and death risks, in addition to occup-ational diseases and work injuries.
Contributions are made on a monthly basis and computed as a percentage of each employee's basic salary - 10.5 per cent by the employer and 6.5 per cent by the insured.
© Muscat Daily 2011
