Jensen La Vende

Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) Dr Daryl Din­di­al says the in­crease in Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s salary is ac­tu­al­ly clos­er to 25 per cent and not 47 per cent.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Din­di­al, who is al­so sec­re­tary of the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion, said there is a mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the in­crease in the Prime Min­is­ter and oth­er se­nior State of­fi­cials’ salaries in the pub­lic do­main.

“The Prime Min­is­ter was in re­ceipt of a du­ty al­lowance that was con­sol­i­dat­ed with his salary. That du­ty al­lowance is re­al­ly worth 15 per cent of his ex­ist­ing salary and when you con­sol­i­date that, he lost that al­lowance. In a re­al sense, he got a 27 per cent in­crease on that con­sol­i­dat­ed salary. And when we look at the to­tal cash com­pen­sa­tion, we cal­cu­lat­ed it to be about 24 per cent.”

Ac­cord­ing to the SRC’s 120th re­port, the Prime Min­is­ter’s salary will move from $59,680 to $87,847. The in­crease in salaries for top State of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, mem­bers of par­lia­ment and judges, will see a back­pay pay­out of $150 mil­lion.

The SRC’s re­port eval­u­at­ed the month­ly earn­ings of 206 of­fices and rec­om­mend­ed that 93.3 per cent re­ceive a wage in­crease, 4.5 per cent re­ceive a wage de­crease and 2.2 per cent main­tain their cur­rent salaries.

Din­di­al said this prop­er cal­cu­la­tion of the in­creas­es would not af­fect the dol­lar val­ue of what the PM and oth­ers will be re­ceiv­ing but want­ed the record to be clear that it was not a 47 per cent in­crease.

Dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing on No­vem­ber 28, Row­ley said he had ac­cept­ed the SRC’s rec­om­men­da­tions.

While the Op­po­si­tion, an­a­lysts and trade union lead­ers have said now is not the right time for the Prime Min­is­ter and oth­ers to ac­cept the in­creas­es, Din­di­al ques­tioned when would be a good time to ac­cept the salary hike.

To­day, the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) is ex­pect­ed to protest out­side the PM’s White­hall of­fice against the Cab­i­net’s de­ci­sion to ac­cept the SRC’s rec­om­men­da­tions.