Uzbekistan pays doctors' wages with chicks

CNNTurk.com

Hürriyet photo

Uzbekistan has distributed live chicks to doctors and teachers working in the public sector in lieu of their salaries, CNNTürk reported today.
 
Vobkent Municipality in the city of Bukhara has distributed 20,000 chicks to public employees as payment and another 4,500 to poor people in the district.
 
Vobkent Mayor Mahmoud Halimov reportedly said the chicks were given only to employees who were willing to accept them as payment and that the rest received their full salaries. "We did not force the employees to accept the chicks as payment," Halimov said. 
 
The decision to distribute chicks as wages came after the Uzbek Cabinet passed an act to encourage and improve livestock production in the country. 
 
The chicks were imported from Serbia as they were much more productive than the Uzbek breed, Halimov said. "These chicks can start laying eggs in two months. The employees have already requested a total of 40,000 more chicks as payment in the coming months,” he said.
 
Each chick given to employees was valued at $2.50, a teacher in Vobkent reportedly said.