The government said on Wednesday that is has been unable to make as part of its January payroll the one per cent increase for half of 2018 that Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves announced on Jan. 11.
A notice from the Accountant General said that due to the time of the announcement of the increase and the scheduled date for the running of the government’s monthly payroll, the Treasury was unable to process the increase in back pay in time for January 2019.
The notice said that the payment of the salary increase and back payment to the public sector workers, including pensioners, parliamentarians, daily paid and minor salaried workers, will be made during February.
Some categories of non-pensionable workers will receive their remuneration with their weekly and fortnightly salary while others will receive it with their monthly February salary, the notice said.
The government, on Jan. 11, agreed with the Commercial, Technical and
Allied Workers Union and the National Workers Movement to a one per cent salary
increase for the second half of 2018.
They also agreed a 1.5 per cent salary hike for 2019 and 2 per cent for 2020.
The executives of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Teachers’ Union, the
Public Service Union and the Police Welfare Association did not attend the
talks.
They decided to stay away after being told on arrival at the Office of the Prime Minster for the meeting that they had to surrender their mobile devices to the police security officer there.
The union leaders said there had never been that requirement in previous years’ meetings with the prime minister.
This is just another sign of both a bureaucratically incompetent and hand-to-mouth government.
I predict that by the end of their fourth term in office, goverment debt piled on by this spendthrift ULP regime will have risen to at least 85 percent of GDP.
Large levels of debt are economically destructive in countries like ours with little potential to ever repay them. The end result is always the same: being placed on a near starvation diet by the International Monetary Fund.
Interesting comment, I think the USA has a debt to GDP ratio of over 100%
Yes, they also have a money printing press and the world reserve currency. We do not.
When I think of politics in Vincy the phrase “pick your poison” comes to mind..sad reality we’re facing.
Looks as if somebody’s stupidity came back and bite him in the backside. Was it the FM or the PM that is to blame? Will some musician please put all this to music? Like a jazzy calypso with a lot of brass. Playwrights take out your pens. Some might remember Belshazzar’s feast from Daniel chapter five. The writing is on the wall, it will be curtains next election. I wonder how much they paying off Ms. Farrell, the fuse went out of that too easy.