The Samoa Chamber of Commerce has recommended that pay rises for civil servants be based on performance only and not on the need for cost of living adjustments.
The Chamber also believes the salaries of chief executive officers and assistant CEOs should not be increased.
It says the salaries of these officials have gone up by 74 cent since a restructuring of the civil service five years ago.
Chamber president, Sina Retzlaff Lima, told the Samoa Observer the Remuneration Tribunal's cost of living based framework takes far too narrow a view given that Samoa's formal employment represents less than 12 per cent of the population.
Mrs Lima says the framework ignores other key indicators on which salaries should be based.
These, she says, are performance, market conditions, affordability, relativities between professions and budget priorities.
