Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo has ap­proved the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) to pro­ceed with pro­posed ten per cent wage ne­go­ti­a­tions for pub­lic ser­vants. How­ev­er, Tan­coo not­ed that the CPO still has “a few pre­req­ui­sites” to com­plete be­fore face-to-face ne­go­ti­a­tions with the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) can be­gin.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Tan­coo said, “Writ­ten in­struc­tion was al­ready giv­en to the CPO to com­mence ne­go­ti­a­tions fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of the bud­get de­bate. I am aware that quite a few pre­req­ui­sites are be­ing fi­nalised be­fore the face-to-face ne­go­ti­a­tions start.” He did not pro­vide a spe­cif­ic date for the talks.

PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas ex­pressed op­ti­mism that the meet­ing with CPO Com­man­der Dr Daryl Din­di­al (Ret’d) could oc­cur with­in the next few days.

“I wrote to the CPO, who re­spond­ed, in­di­cat­ing they are do­ing their cal­cu­la­tions and await­ing the com­ple­tion of the bud­get dis­cus­sion, af­ter which they will get in­struc­tions from the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance,” Thomas said. “I an­tic­i­pate that by the end of this week, or ear­ly next week, we should be get­ting a re­sponse from the CPO.”

Ef­forts to con­tact the CPO’s of­fice through its com­mu­ni­ca­tions unit were un­suc­cess­ful.

Thomas em­pha­sised her de­ter­mi­na­tion to con­clude ne­go­ti­a­tions and en­sure her mem­bers re­ceive their pay­ments by Christ­mas. She said the cal­cu­la­tions should not cause sig­nif­i­cant de­lays.

“The ear­li­er we get it done, the bet­ter chances there are of us get­ting it in­to our mem­bers’ pock­ets by Christ­mas. It should not be a dif­fi­cult task, giv­en that they were pre­pared to of­fer four per cent. The cal­cu­la­tion should have been done for that, so it’s just a mat­ter of ad­just­ing it for ten per cent. We still have to agree on how the ten per cent will be dis­trib­uted,” she ex­plained.

The pro­posed wage in­crease will cov­er two pe­ri­ods: 2014–2016 and 2017–2019, rep­re­sent­ing a five per cent in­crease for each pe­ri­od. Thomas re­mind­ed that the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion had on­ly of­fered four per cent over those pe­ri­ods.

Asked whether the PSA may push for more at the bar­gain­ing ta­ble, Thomas said, “Every chance we’ll push it as far as we can, but I’m mind­ful that my mem­ber­ship is ready to have their mon­ey in their pock­ets. I will push for the best out­come for them.”

Thomas added that while pub­lic ser­vants are ex­pect­ed to main­tain ef­fi­cien­cy, the ser­vice is al­so un­der­staffed and un­der-re­sourced, fac­tors that must be con­sid­ered dur­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Dur­ing his pre­sen­ta­tion of the 2026 Bud­get on Oc­to­ber 13, Tan­coo said the Prime Min­is­ter in­struct­ed him to ad­vise the CPO to sub­mit a ten per cent wage in­crease of­fer to pub­lic ser­vants. Asked how much the of­fer would cost the state, Tan­coo said the fig­ures would be avail­able on­ly af­ter ne­go­ti­a­tions are com­plet­ed.