Lukashenka: Businesses should sell their Mercedes cars and pay employees $500

The dictator’s new demand is the average salary reaching $500 in 2012.

“We can reach the average salary of $500. Any arguments against it are void. Operations of numerous enterprises prove it. For example, in Minsk the average salary is close to $500 and will rise even higher. Why can’t others? Others should make it real, too,” Lukashenka said today during a meeting with National Bank chairperson Nadzieya Yermakova.

“Businessmen should set a goal to reach not $500, but $700 this year. At the state companies, the average salary should get above $500. We must achieve this goal,” Lukashenka pointed out.

”There are speculations that something is missing to achieve this goal. These speculations are groundless. I wonder then how can nearly every director, specialist, manager of private companies drive around in a Mercedes? And companies cannot pay a decent salary to their workers? Yes they can. They should sell their Mercedes and pay their employees,” he said.

Lukashenka commented on the state sector as well:

“Check their expenses. They must cut down the self-costs and raise the salary to an adequate level. This has nothing to do with a fear of something, which our “conscious ones” (the opposition – www.charter97.org) and tabloids write about. If there is a fear, it is only linked to the normal lives of the workers’ families.”

Lukashenka said that the demand to raise salaries must be properly met: “Of course, this is the government’s basic task, but the National Bank cannot stand aside.”