It will be a big pay day for many of Tonga's civil servants next week when they collect back pay for the weeks they were on strike.

The civil servants who went on strike from July 22 to September 4 will be given their arrears payment on Monday October 10, for the days that they were at work from July 1 to July 21, and for the days when they were not at work from July 22 onwards.

Supileo Lanumata, the Salary Supervisor of the Treasury said that starting on Monday next week they would start paying out the backdated arrears based on the June 30 salary structure and the 60% rise across the board to everyone on the civil servant list.

"We would begin with the small Government Ministries on Monday and continue on to larger Ministries later in the week, it is our hope that the arrears would all be paid out in full at the end of next week, but if it does not then we will finish it the week after," said Supileo.

Supileo said that the reason why it has taken them four weeks to be able to pay out the backdated arrears was because when Government...’s new reform came into force on July 1, each salary scale had a different percentage in their salary rise.

"It was not easy because it was not just a one percentage rise across the board like it is now, some levels had 2% rise and others have 20% rise on the July 1 salary scale. What we have been doing since was trying to adjust those figures to the old salary structure of June 30 together with the 60% rise and backdating it to July 1," said Supileo.

It is pay week this week for Civil servants, their third two-weekly payrolls based on the June 30 salary scale, together with the 60% rise.



While the striking civil servants get paid for not working, there has been no credit offered to the public for the services that shut down during the strike. Government is still collecting school fees, rubbish collection fees and other service fees from the public for the period of the strike.