A group of school teachers and medical workers from Vahdat Township say they have not received salaries for already three months. “Moreover, local authorities ask us to wait until new year,” they say.
Teachers at School No 1, for example, say they have not received salaries since August. “More than 120 teachers work with the school and all of them have not received salaries since August,” one of teachers told Asia-Plus in an interview.
A similar situation is observed in schools ## 2, 3, 5, 139 and 141.
“That is not enough that we have not received our salaries for three months. In addition, they have deducted our one-day salary twice for construction of a new stadium and for celebrations to mark the country’s Independence Day on September 9,” the teachers say.
Asia-Plus reporter has visited the Vahdat central city hospital. The same is observed in the central hospital. More than 500 people work with this hospital and one of medical workers said they had partially received salary for August, though salaries of medical workers are not so high. “Thus, a monthly salary of nurses is 300.00 somoni, while a monthly salary of nurse’s aides is 250.00 somoni,” she noted. “Meanwhile, they have already deducted money for subscription to state-run newspapers from salaries we have not yet received!”
Local authorities have confirmed that employees of federally funded institutions have note received salaries for already three months.
“We have reached only 87 percent of the budget target for the first ten months of this year. That is why there is no enough money to pay salaries of employees of the federally funded institutions,” Musofir Nasreddinov, the head of the Vahdat finance department, told Asia-Plus in an interview.
According to him, the revenue part of the budget has been determined at 104.239 million somoni, while they have received only 90,858,177 somoni. “Thus, the budget has received nearly 13.5 million somoni less,” said Nasreddinov. “That is the amount we should pay to employees of the federally funded institutions.”
Meanwhile, some local entrepreneurs say the lack of money to pay salaries of employees of the federally funded institutions is the result of celebrations that took place in Vahdat on the occasion of the National Unity Day.
According to them the most costly facility was the Vahdat Central Stadium. The Vahdat budget earmarked 25 million somoni for construction of this stadium. In addition, 20 million somoni have been allocated from the country’s national budget.
Besides, huge amounts have reportedly been allocated for construction of a new school that accommodates 1,240 pupils, new park, twenty-two apartment buildings and many other facilities.
Local tax inspectorate says they have fulfilled the tax target for the first nine months of this year.
According to tax officers, two large enterprises located in territories subordinate to Vahdat Township – Pakrut Gold Mine (Chinese gold mining company) and LLC “Toj-China 2013” (cement plant) – have failed to make payments to the Vahdat budget over the report period (these companies pay taxes directly to the Tax Committee under the Government of Tajikistan). This has reportedly resulted in Vahdat failing to fulfill its budget revenue part target.
Similar salary payment delays have been observed in other regions of Tajikistan as well.
