Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – House Speaker Agung Laksono denied reports Saturday that members of the House of Representatives would receive yet another pay hike.

"There will be no salary hike in 2006. We don't know yet if there will be any in 2007 or 2008. We last got a salary increase approved in 2005, but it has yet to be disbursed," he told reporters.

Agung said that the finance ministry had not yet paid the 2005 hike because they needed to prioritize more urgent needs, such as malnutrition in some provinces.

Agung was responding to media reports that the House internal affairs board is finalizing a plan to increase legislators' monthly salaries by between Rp 14 million and Rp 16 million.

If true, it will make legislators some of the highest paid people in the country. For example, an ordinary member's take-home pay would reach about Rp 50 million a month, a deputy House Speaker would get Rp 75 million and a House Speaker 90 million a month.

The media reports have sparked public protests. Critics say that the planned pay hike reflects the legislative body's insensitivity in times when poverty across the country has been worsening.

The internal affairs board has confirmed that they planned to ask the government to pay the 2005 salary hike, but denied seeking further increases.

"The finance ministry has yet to disburse last year's allowances for the legislators," legislator Roestanto Wahidi of the Democrat Party, who chairs the board, told reporters. The allowances include that for health care and communications.

Last year, the legislators' salaries were increased by around Rp 10 million a month. The increase also earned strong public protests because it was announced when people were struggling to make the ends meet following the October fuel price increases.

The latest pay hike plan was leaked to the media by legislator Suryama M. Sastra of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) last week.

Suryama's move angered some other legislators. Nizar Dahlan, the internal affairs board deputy chairman, threatened to report him to the House disciplinary commission for leaking the information.

"It (pay hike plan) was not supposed to be made public until we reported it to the House leadership," Nizar said. He also demanded that Suryama be dismissed from the internal affairs board.