Richard Lord

The Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion (SRC) is rec­om­mend­ing that most of the coun­try's top of­fice hold­ers, in­clud­ing the Prime Min­is­ter, Op­po­si­tion Leader and Chief Jus­tice, be giv­en as much as a 24 per cent in­crease in their ba­sic salaries.The pro­posed in­creas­es will take the Prime Min­is­ter's salary from $48,000 to $59,680; the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion's from $23,800 to $29,590 and the CJ's from $40,500 to $50,350.The last salary in­crease for MPs and se­nior of­fi­cials was im­ple­ment­ed in 2005.

The rec­om­men­da­tions are con­tained in the 98th Re­port of the SRC, which was laid in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day by the Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness and Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal.The Prime Min­is­ter is al­so to ben­e­fit from a $33,000 an­nu­al al­lowance. Her an­nu­al take home pay is ex­pect­ed to be $749,480 per year, while the Op­po­si­tion Leader's an­nu­al take home pay will be $481,110.The CJ, how­ev­er, will earn an an­nu­al in­come of more than $1.2 mil­lion, which is non-tax­able.

The SRC is rec­om­mend­ing the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al be paid a ba­sic month­ly salary of more than $41,000, up from the cur­rent $33,000. The House Speak­er and Sen­ate Pres­i­dent's month­ly salary are set to in­crease from $23,800 to $29,590.The salary of a cab­i­net min­is­ter is al­so ex­pect­ed to in­crease from $33,000 a month to $41,030, while MPs and sen­a­tors' salaries are set to in­crease to over $17,000 and $13,000 re­spec­tive­ly.The re­port has to be de­bat­ed and ap­proved in Par­lia­ment be­fore the rec­om­men­da­tions can be ef­fect­ed.

The SRC pre­pared its re­port af­ter a doc­u­ment was pre­sent­ed to it by the House Com­mit­tee.The House Com­mit­tee, in its re­port to the SRC, said that all those en­gaged at the high­est lev­els in the pub­lic ser­vice "should be en­ti­tled to rea­son­able com­pen­sa­tion." It added that "such com­pen­sa­tion, both mon­e­tary and non-mon­e­tary, should be ad­e­quate to at­tract and re­tain ca­pa­ble peo­ple to gov­ern­ment ser­vice at this lev­el and must re­mu­ner­ate them just­ly for their ser­vice."

Dur­ing yes­ter­day's de­bate on a bill to amend the Nurs­es and Mid­wives Bill in Par­lia­ment, Op­po­si­tion MP Colm Im­bert said MPs were not be­ing paid ad­e­quate­ly for the ser­vices.The com­mit­tee stat­ed, "On av­er­age, a mem­ber spends over 20 hours per week prepar­ing for and at­tend­ing meet­ings (and) con­stituen­cy work con­sumes an­oth­er 20 hours of the work week of an elect­ed mem­ber." It rec­om­mend­ed that the work of an elect­ed MP be full time and this should be re­flect­ed in his/her re­mu­ner­a­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the com­mit­tee, it was "un­just to re­quire par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to for­go en­ti­tle­ments that they cur­rent­ly en­joy."

Pro­posed Salary In­creas­es

High­er Ju­di­cia­ry

Chief Jus­tice: $50,350 ($40,500 - cur­rent)

Jus­tice of Ap­peal: $42,020 ($33,800 - cur­rent)

Puisne Judge: $37,300 ($30,000 - cur­rent)

Ex­ec­u­tive

Prime Min­is­ter: $59,680 ($33,000 - cur­rent)

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al: $41,030 ($33,000 - cur­rent)

Cab­i­net Min­is­ters: $41,030 ($33,000 - cur­rent)

Non-Cab­i­net Min­is­ters: $33,940 ($27,000 - cur­rent)

Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary: $23,500 ($18,900 - cur­rent)

Leg­is­la­ture

Sen­ate Pres­i­dent: $29,590 ($23,800 - cur­rent)

House Speak­er: $29,590 ($23,800 - cur­rent)

Op­po­si­tion Leader: $29,590 ($23,800 - cur­rent)

Deputy Speak­er: $18,280 ($14,700 cur­rent)

MPs: $17,410 ($14,000 - cur­rent)

Vice-Pres­i­dent: $18,280 ($14,700 - cur­rent)

Sen­a­tors: $13,060 ($10,500 - cur­rent)