New Salary Rates for the Military and the Police

The Government confirmed yesterday the increase of salary for the members of the National Police and the Armed Forces. This measure was taken after four days of the uprising in the capital, which caused the death of 13 people and left many wounded.

Defense Ministry, Javier Ponce, and Ministry of Interior, Gustavo Jalkh announced their agreement with the Ministry of Labor Relations since it corrects the numeric discrepancies for captains, mayors and other officials of the two institutions. Many of the salaries have an increase of $500.

The ministry agreement also provides payment of that retroactive increase from January 2010 and it will be exercised at the start of next week. According to Ponce the salary increase of the Armed Forces would cost the Government almost $35 millions a year.

Meanwhile Jalkh pointed out that the income for the Police would also benefits sergeants. The regiment denies that this disposition was taken because of the Thursday events. Ponce stated that the analysis of this measure has been studied for over a year, because of its judicial validity and that it is part of the salary homologation that was implemented on previous Governments, who also had problems with the Public Force.

President Rafael Correa had already asked on August to speed up this process and to correct the injustice. On Monday, last week, the Chief of Estate received a report from the Judicial Secretary of the Presidency to arrange the agreement, which was signed last Saturday by the Ministry of Labor Relations, Richard Espinosa.

The promotion mechanisms, along with professional rewards and awards were also taken into consideration before the acceptance of the Public Service Law, which will be kept until December 31 of this year.

The ministry is going to perform a campaign to inform the new measures of this Law and the benefits it will give to the police and the military. Ministry Jalkh maintains several meetings with the new commander of the Police, Fausto Franco in order to define the methods for the delivery of compensations.

The Government confirmed that the severance payment and retirement of members from security forces will not change, as well as the respect for the Social Security Institute of the Armed Forces (Issfa) and the Social Security Institute of the National Police (Isspol).