PA to pay only 50% of salaries of public employees
Ramallah (QNN) – For the second month in a row, the Palestinian Authority’s government said today it is going to pay only 50 percent of the March salary of public employees.
Salaries were cut in half as of last month after the PA refused to accept around $200 million in tax revenues Israel collects on its behalf every month because the Israeli government has deducted millions of dollars from it for what it claimed was the amount of money the PA pays to families of prisoners held in Israeli jails and those killed by Israeli forces. The PA had said it either gets all its money, or none at all.
The Palestinian Finance Ministry said that a minimum of 2000 Israeli shekels will be paid for the low paid employees, who compose some 40 percent of the total number of public employees, and a maximum of 10,000 shekels for the highly paid cabinet ministers, judges and diplomatic staff.
It also said that prisoners and families of the wounded and killed will be paid in full despite the Israeli punitive measure against the PA.
Israeli Minister of Finance Moshe Kahlon signed yesterday an order to cut around $11 million from last month’s PA tax revenues, which he said amounts to what the PA pays to the families of prisoners, dead and wounded.
