SHAS­TRI BOODAN

The five per cent salary in­crease giv­en to pub­lic ser­vants is a sig­nal to oth­er trade unions what the Gov­ern­ment can af­ford when it comes to wages.So said Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Labour Rudranath In­dars­ingh, the Cou­va South MP.He was speak­ing to re­porters yes­ter­day just be­fore the start of a march en­ti­tled Break The Si­lence, End Child Sex­u­al Abuse at Gilbert Park, Cal­i­for­nia in cen­tral Trinidad.In­dars­ingh said the Gov­ern­ment ham­mered the deal with the PSA in good faith. "This in it­self re­lates the re­al­i­ty of the econ­o­my of T&T and the very fact that we are liv­ing in very strin­gent fi­nan­cial times.

"Time and time again Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Win­ston Dook­er­an in­di­cat­ed to the coun­try and more so the trade union move­ment that we can­not of­fer out­side of five per cent, tak­ing in­to con­sid­er­a­tion what is avail­able in the cof­fers of T&T."He said any­thing more than five per cent would have meant ad­di­tion­al bor­row­ing and in­creas­ing the debt bur­den to tax­pay­ers.