Will The New Salary Scale Actually Curb Corruption?
Bangladesh’s secretaries’ committee has recommended raising government workers’ basic salaries by up to 100 percent over two years, with lower-level employees getting bigger increases. The cabinet still has to approve the final numbers and timeline.
In a Nutshell:
- The government's secretaries' committee wants to raise basic salaries by up to 100 percent for all government employees (grades 1-20), with lower-level workers getting bigger raises.
- The plan is to roll this out in two steps: basic salaries go up first, and allowances increase later.
- This is less than what was originally proposed. In January 2026, the Pay Commission had suggested raises of 100 to 142 percent, with the lowest salary jumping from Tk8,250 to Tk20,000.
- The government has set aside Tk44,000 crore in this year's budget to start paying for it, on top of the Tk89,836 crore it already spends on salaries.
- A separate committee is still reviewing pay for judges before the final plan goes to the cabinet.
Context
Government workers have been stuck with the same 2015 pay scale for 11 years, getting only small 5 percent yearly bumps while prices kept rising. Before winning the February 2026 election, BNP leader Tarique Rahman promised that if his party won, it would announce and roll out a new pay scale on time. BNP's election manifesto went further, promising wages that rise automatically with inflation every two years, along with open bidding, real-time audits, and a more accountable government workforce. The Pay Commission's report was actually finished back in January 2026 under the previous interim government, but it was left for whoever won the election to decide, so now it's landed on BNP's desk.
Why it matters
This isn't just about giving people a raise, it's a test of whether more money can fix a deeper problem: corruption. Finance Minister Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury told Prothom Alo on 11 June 2026 that paying government workers more should help reduce corruption, since people under financial stress are more likely to take bribes. But this is a risky bet politically. The last time Bangladesh tried this, in 2015, corruption didn't really go down, and even the High Court asked why bribery continued despite the raise. If the same thing happens again, it could hurt BNP's promise to clean up the government just as it's settling into power. On the money side, splitting the Tk44,000 crore cost over two years makes this year's budget easier to manage, but it locks in a much bigger salary bill for years to come, at a time when the government isn't collecting enough tax revenue and the IMF has already flagged concerns about spending too much too fast. So this decision says a lot about whether the new government is serious about real reform, or just doing what's politically easy.
What we think
Paying people more doesn't automatically make them more honest, unless it comes with real consequences for those who still take bribes. Transparency International Bangladesh has warned plainly that "raising salaries in the public sector does not reduce corruption" on its own, and could even push bribe amounts higher if nothing else changes. A recent 100-day review of the BNP government by the same watchdog found some good early signs, but also pointed out the government was falling short on the accountability reforms it had promised. Given what happened after the 2015 raise, when corruption barely budged despite higher pay, Bangladesh shouldn't expect a repeat performance to work any differently unless something else changes too. That means pairing this pay raise with real enforcement, like stronger anti-corruption investigations, mandatory asset disclosures, and actual punishment for officials caught taking bribes. The government also needs to think hard about the long-term cost. Locking in a permanently bigger salary bill without seeing real improvements in honesty and service delivery would leave Bangladesh worse off, paying more money for the same problems it started with.