VietNamNet Bridge - While the average salary of seasonal workers is only VND5.4 million ($260) per month, that of the Director of HCM City Urban Drainage Company is over VND200 million ($10,000), totaling about VND2.6 billion ($130,000) a year.

Officials of the HCM City Urban Drainage Company received the Third-class Labor Order.

This is the result of an investigation into four State-owned companies in HCM City, which paid extremely high salary to officials. In these companies, the pay for the directors, deputy directors, chief accountants, and other officials are over ten times higher than the workers.

In particular, the HCM City Urban Drainage Company paid salaries for the director worth VND2.6 billion in 2012, the chairman with VND1.6 billion ($53,000), the chief accountant VND1.67 billion and the deputy director VND969 million. Meanwhile, the average salary for seasonal employees in the company is only VND5.4 million per month.

At the HCM City Public Lighting Company, the director was also paid up to VND2.2 billion ($110,000) last year, the chairman with VND2.4 billion, the deputy director VND1.9 billion and the chief accountant VND1.7 billion while wages for seasonal workers is VND7.8 million ($340) a month.

The Saigon Transport Work Company paid VND856 million for the director last year, the chairman VND853 million, the deputy director VND584 and the chief accountant VND716 million. The wage for seasonal workers was VND4.5 million a month and regular workers was VND25.7 million ($1,300) a month.

Similarly, the HCM City Park and Tree Company, the directors was paid VND759 million per year, the chairman VND691 million, the deputy director 609 million and the chief accountant 655 million last year.

According to the conclusion made by HCM City Vice Chairman Le Manh Ha, while the average salary of the state-owned enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City is VND7.3 million per month, the average monthly salary of these four companies is more than VND22 million a month.

The Vice President asked these firms to submit their reports on this issue and explaining why the income of officials was tens of times higher than seasonal workers.

Ha also asked the relevant agencies to analyze the imbalance of income between public enterprises and other state-owned enterprises to have solution to restrict losses for the state.

According to a document signed by Mr. Ha, the salary of these officials was unusually high because they improperly implemented the provisions of the Labor Code. Hundreds of employees who are eligible for singing labor contracts are still seasonal workers. These firms used the salary fund for workers to pay high salary for officials. These companies must return a billion dong to the state budget.

Particularly, the HCM City Urban Drainage Company is accused of violating the Labor Code when it signed seasonal labor contracts of less then 3 months with 163 regular workers and contract of 3 years with 355 workers who are eligible for indefinite contracts. Similar violations to hundreds of workers also happened at the Saigon Transport Work Company.

M. Lan