Richard?Lord

Cab­i­net Min­is­ter Franklin Khan says par­lia­men­tar­i­ans are not seek­ing any pay hike at this time, but the is­sue is com­ing up be­cause the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion had be­gun its re­view of the salaries.

He made the com­ment in a brief in­ter­view dur­ing yes­ter­day's sen­ate tea break at Tow­er D, In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, in re­sponse to a T&T Guardian sto­ry yes­ter­day about the re­view.

Khan said he did not like the "sense in the me­dia im­ply­ing that par­lia­men­tar­i­ans are seek­ing a salary in­crease." He said there were no pro­pos­als for the hike and it was not im­mi­nent. He in­sist­ed, how­ev­er, that the is­sue was still in process.

"We do not know what the con­sul­tants will rec­om­mend. They were just get­ting a feel for the work we ac­tu­al­ly do. They were most­ly talk­ing to the par­lia­men­tary staff."

He said the con­sul­tants want­ed to how many com­mit­tees ex­ist, how of­ten they meet and whether par­lia­men­tar­i­ans were part-time or full-time work­ers. The ex­ist­ing MP salaries are based on the con­cept that their work is part-time, he added. He said a con­sul­tant was em­ployed by the SRC as it be­gan to do its work in this process.

Asked if the Gov­ern­ment had a po­si­tion on whether pay hikes for par­lia­men­tar­i­ans should be pur­sued in the wake of ex­ist­ing eco­nom­ic con­di­tions in the coun­try, Khan said, "The Gov­ern­ment has no po­si­tion on that right now."

Khan, who is the Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, said the SRC "has the sole ju­ris­dic­tion to pro­pose re­mu­ner­a­tion for cer­tain cat­e­gories of state sec­tor em­ploy­ees, in­clud­ing coun­cil­lors, MPs, min­is­ters, per­ma­nent sec­re­taries and oth­er se­nior pub­lic of­fi­cials."

He said dur­ing a meet­ing last week, the con­sul­tant was seek­ing in­for­ma­tion from those as­sem­bled, in­clud­ing par­lia­men­tary staff, about the pos­si­ble pay hike.

"The con­sul­tants were con­sult­ing," he added.

Khan said no fol­low-up meet­ings were sched­uled with par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, but he was of the opin­ion that the con­sul­tants "will be mak­ing com­par­a­tive stud­ies with oth­er Com­mon­wealth coun­tries like Aus­tralia and New Zealand and will come up with what they think is the best renu­mer­a­tion pack­age."

Ac­cord­ing to Khan, the con­sul­tant will sub­mit his re­port to the SRC and the SRC will sub­se­quent­ly sub­mit its fi­nal rec­om­men­da­tions to the Cab­i­net and the Par­lia­ment, a process which must take place be­fore any is­sue of a pay hike can be de­ter­mined.

"Even if any spe­cif­ic rec­om­men­da­tions are made, ob­vi­ous­ly the na­tion­al sen­ti­ment will al­ways be tak­en in­to con­sid­er­a­tion," he in­sist­ed.