A part of me thinks it’s low on purpose so the only candidates that apply are doing it for ideological reasons, and aren’t motivated by money (thus opening them up to risk of being bought by a foreign agency). Who knows, maybe it would be revealed their salary would quadruple after they get the job.
But the likelihood is that their budgets are low and can’t compete with the private sector.
People on low salaries are exactly the sort of people who would be vulnerable to being bribed by foreign adversaries.
Yeah I realise that, that’s why I thought about maybe the advertised salary might not necessarily be the truth and they do get decent compensation to reduce the chance of them getting compromised due to financial reasons.