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Palace denies President and Vice President to get salary increases
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President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and Vice President Jusuf Kalla. (Antara/Puspa Perwitasari)
T
he State Place has denied a report that President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Vice President Jusuf Kalla have got salary increases, stressing that the salaries of the two top state officials have not changed for the last 16 years.
The head of the palace’s press bureau, Bey Machmudin, said on Wednesday that the salaries of Jokowi and Kalla were still based on Law No. 7/1978 on the financial and administrative rights of the President, Vice President, former presidents and former vice presidents.
“According to Article 2 of Law No. 7/1978, the basic salary for the President is six times the highest basic salary of the other public officials, while the basic salary for the Vice President is four times from the highest basic salary of the other public officials,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.
Based on Government Regulation No. 75/2000, the highest basic salaries of the other public officials like the House of Representatives speaker, the Supreme Court chief justice and the Supreme Audit Agency chief are Rp 5.04 million (US$378.40) per month.
Therefore, Jokowi's basic salary is Rp 30.24 million per month and Kalla's is Rp 20.16 million per month. Jokowi gets a Rp 32.5 million allowance for his job as President and Kalla gets a Rp 22 million allowance as Vice President.
The rumor of a salary increase was sparked by speculative calculations made by analysts based on the Rp 45 million in zakat mal (annual obligatory alms for Muslims) paid by Jokowi. The amount of zakat mal paid is supposed to be 2.5 percent of a total annual income. (ecn/bbn)
