Honduras Congress spends more than seven million lempiras monthly for salaries to its members who on average only spend an average of 20 hours per month in session. The austerity measures adopted by Congress contrasts with the high economic cost of the country which has been questioned by many independent agencies monitoring the current Honduras budget.

The decision adopted by the congressional board of directors, calls instead for austerity measures such, as freezing wages, not hiring new staff and a reduction of 67 ordinary commissions to just 20, in order to save on processing of transactions and paperwork as well as staff.

The Congressional board of directors also agreed to establish a schedule of four hours on Tuesday and eight hours on Wednesday, and Thursday for which they will not meet in order “to save on energy costs, food and transportation.” But some say that the measure is only being adopted in order to provide congressmen with more time to campaign, as they prepare for the upcoming November elections where most seek re-election.

The budget adopted for operations of this years Congress was reduced from $26.7 million dollars to $26.2 million dollars. In practice the legislative branch of government has an annual allocation of $46.3 million dollars after approving the annual budget. Lawmakers have a reserve of $20.6 million dollars to be distributed by way of subsidies for their communities.

The budget reduction is a hot issue due to the high cost it represents to the viable sustainability of Honduras. Congress spends more than seven million lempiras on salaries to the members who average only 20 hours in session per month. According to the governments transparency reports, the president of the board of directors earns a monthly salary of $4,800 dollars a month with deductions actually receives a monthly net salary of $3,470 dollars. In the case of the other directors they earn a monthly salary of $3,100 dollars for the vice presidents and $3,000 dollars towards the secretaries and pro-secretaries. The remaining members earn $2,800 dollars a month.

According to studies performed by monitoring agencies, the congressmen have an average salary of $3,600 dollars a month when including per-diems and other allowances and expenses. An additional $257 dollars a month for leadership positions and committee chairs, plus other subsidies received by each member per year, representing an average of $51,400 dollars for regular attendees and between $12,853 and $25,700 dollars for the alternates.

Congressman Toribio Aguilera reacted to the report and said, “the initiative of the Executive Branch to take measures to reduce public spending is good, but also stresses the need to improve revenue collection and this could be achieved with the intervention of the customs agencies in order to prevent and limit anomalous transactions being performed by these agencies”. Aguilera also stated that the country’s financial situation is “quite complex”, so “all necessary steps must be taken to get out of the current economic crisis”.