Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert yes­ter­day de­clined to give any per­son­al opin­ions on plans by trade unions to march on White­hall on Sat­ur­day.

The Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) has called for unions un­der its um­brel­la to gath­er at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah to protest the Cab­i­net’s de­ci­sion to ac­cept the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion (SRC) for salary in­creas­es for se­nior pub­lic of­fi­cials and politi­cians, in­clud­ing the Pres­i­dent, Prime Min­is­ter, Op­po­si­tion Leader and MPs. The unions have called it a slap in the face, es­pe­cial­ly in light of years of “eco­nom­ic belt-tight­en­ing.”

At yes­ter­day’s me­dia brief­ing, Im­bert said, “I be­lieve the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter came to a press con­fer­ence some time ago and out­lined the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion on that mat­ter and I have noth­ing to add.”

Im­bert was then asked how it felt, on a per­son­al note, to ac­cept the SRC’s in­crease rec­om­men­da­tions when peo­ple (re­fer­ring to the var­i­ous trade union ne­go­ti­a­tions) were knock­ing on his door as Fi­nance Min­is­ter.

He replied, “I be­lieve, and this is how I just an­swered Ke­jan (Haynes), the Prime Min­is­ter had a press con­fer­ence last week and dealt with that mat­ter. I have noth­ing to add.”

The Fi­nance Min­is­ter did clar­i­fy, how­ev­er, that there were sev­er­al pre­vi­ous­ly set­tled ne­go­ti­a­tions, name­ly those unions who ac­cept­ed the four per cent of­fer last year.

“I want to be very clear. The Gov­ern­ment through the CPO has of­fered cer­tain trade unions four per cent for a par­tic­u­lar pe­ri­od, and most trade unions ac­cept­ed that. The Gov­ern­ment now through the CPO is ar­rang­ing to of­fer the same trade unions five per cent for an­oth­er pe­ri­od.”

At a me­dia con­fer­ence on Tues­day, JTUM pres­i­dent An­cel Ro­get ex­plained the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the protest say­ing, “Sat­ur­day’s ac­tiv­i­ty is not sole­ly about the Prime Min­is­ter tak­ing a sig­nif­i­cant 47.5 per cent in­crease on his salary. In­stead, it seeks to place this ac­tion in con­text, show­ing cit­i­zens that they have no choice but to stand against what we view as dic­ta­to­r­i­al and ex­ploita­tive be­hav­iour. We must con­front this ad­van­ta­geous con­duct and de­mand fair­ness in gov­er­nance and de­ci­sion-mak­ing.”