70% Pay Rise?

That’s how much a pay rise you’ll get if you are an employee of the UAE federal government. The 70% pay rise was just announced and will take effect in January. Apparently, the government employees are facing a hard time with rising cost of living of late. Furthermore the Dirham has dropped 20% against other major currencies (dragged by its peg to the USD). Therefore, the pay rise was ‘timely’! Gosh… can you imagine it? 70% pay rise! If I earn Dh10000, I would end up with a rise of Dh7000! That’s life for you in UAE and some Emiratis are still complaining that their government ain’t listening to them. I was told each Emirati is given a free villa and that electricity (or was it water) is free! Too bad, in Malaysia we don’t get a free villa (not even a discount for me). There is no free water or electricity here although we almost give water for free to Singapore. And since we do not have a 150-year oil reserve, I guess we have to wait ‘long-long’ for such benefits. On top of that, the locals have a passion for big cars. Some have so many maids in their free villas that the family members are outnumbered. How I wish I can become a local too? Besides the hot and humid summer, life is not bad with so many benefits.

Other news in UAE – it has been foggy in the mornings for the past week across Abu Dhabi, Dubai and the northern emirates. The worst affected was the Abu Dhabi airport which had to be closed for hours every day (usually from midnight till morning). I calculated that my Etihad flight from KL lands in Abu Dhabi at midnight and that the flight to KL departs at 3 am. Therefore, I guess the KL flights were definitely paralysed by the fog. And it seems that the weather forecaster found ‘no reasons’ why the fogs would not persist for some time! Great news indeed! But at least fogs are better than sand storms.