Latest update May 13th, 2024 12:59 AM
Sep 17, 2016 News
While Government may desire to pay Public Servants a rather generous wage increase, Finance Minister,
Winston Jordan, said, yesterday, that at the end of the day, it has to be pragmatic. He insists that Government has to make increases that can be sustained. The current 10 percent offer on the table he says, is the embodiment of that principle.
The economist was meeting with the press yesterday at his Main Street Office. He was asked to say what impact the proposed increase would have on his wage bill. The Finance Minister noted however, that he was not in a position to provide hard figures to that effect.
The Finance Minister said that the “final offer” to the public servants is based on Government’s projections of incoming revenues.
Jordan took the opportunity to address certain aspersions being spread by Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo.
He recalled that the former President had said that Government is in a position to pay the public servants more than the proposed 10 percent increase. Jagdeo made this assertion on the basis that when the APNU+AFC Party came to power, it combed through various systems and found a number of accounts which held millions of dollars.
Jordan said that indeed those monies have been transferred to the Consolidated Fund. He revealed, too, that some of the monies were used to make the “one-off” payments to public servants toward the end of last year. That one-off pay hike could not have been sustained.
The Finance Minister said, “Suppose you employ someone and you are making $50 annually. While you were away, the person spots your bank account and found $200. They now say ‘Listen, I know you can pay me ok. So that 10 percent increase you paying me, I don’t want it. I want 50 percent.’
“Now let’s say after all that you are forced to pay the individual that 50 percent increase, how will you sustain that in the future?”
Jordan said that citizens must understand that every increase that Government makes is one that has to be seen as not only being paid for today but for the next year and beyond that.
The Finance Minister stressed that sustainable payments which have implications for pensions and so forth have to come from growth in revenues.
Jordan said, “We recognize that public servants need the kind of payment that is being bandied about, but that can only happen if the cake grows larger and larger.” (KIANA WILBURG)
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