The Of­fice of the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer and the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion yes­ter­day signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Agree­ment that pro­vides a 10 per cent in­crease in salaries and al­lowances for pub­lic of­fi­cers for the pe­ri­ods 2014 to 2016 and 2017 to 2019. The agree­ment al­so con­sol­i­dates the Cost of Liv­ing Al­lowance for both tri­en­nia.

Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Com­man­der Dr Daryl Din­di­al met with the PSA Ex­ec­u­tive to for­malise the agree­ment, which in­cludes ad­just­ments to sev­er­al al­lowances such as meal, trav­el­ling, house, trans­fer, mo­tor ve­hi­cle loan, cloth­ing and laun­dry al­lowances. It al­so cov­ers the pur­chase and in­stal­la­tion of com­pressed nat­ur­al gas kits as well as the ac­qui­si­tion of T ve­hi­cles for el­i­gi­ble of­fi­cers with­in the Civ­il Ser­vice and Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties.

Com­man­der Din­di­al said he would con­tin­ue dis­cus­sions with the PSA on the meth­ods and time­lines for set­tling out­stand­ing al­lowances and the pay­ment of ar­rears. He added that ex­plo­ration of the pos­si­ble al­lo­ca­tion of Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion homes to pub­lic of­fi­cers re­mained at a pre­lim­i­nary stage and would re­quire full as­sess­ments be­fore any de­ci­sion by the Cab­i­net.

The PSA de­scribed the sign­ing as a vic­to­ry for of­fi­cers across the Civ­il Ser­vice, Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, say­ing mem­bers had shown pa­tience and re­silience through­out what it called a lengthy and chal­leng­ing ne­go­ti­a­tion process. The As­so­ci­a­tion said new salaries would take ef­fect in Jan­u­ary 2026, al­lowances would take ef­fect from Jan­u­ary 1st 2014 and an ad­vance on ar­rears would be paid on or be­fore De­cem­ber 23rd 2025.

The PSA al­so thanked Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance for what it called their roles in mak­ing the agree­ment pos­si­ble. PSA Pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas said the de­vel­op­ment showed the pow­er of uni­ty and sol­i­dar­i­ty across the pub­lic sec­tor and pledged that the As­so­ci­a­tion would con­tin­ue to ad­vo­cate for mem­bers’ rights, eq­ui­ty and dig­ni­ty.

Com­man­der Din­di­al ap­pealed to pub­lic of­fi­cers to recom­mit to pro­fes­sion­al­ism, cour­tesy and ef­fi­cien­cy, say­ing im­proved con­di­tions must be matched by im­proved per­for­mance. “We must do bet­ter; our cit­i­zens de­serve noth­ing less.”