Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Fi­nance Min­is­ter has con­firmed that the im­proved salaries for Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and oth­er pub­lic of­fi­cials as rec­om­mend­ed by the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion (SRC) would come in­to force this month.

Asked if the coun­try has the mon­ey to pay the high­er salaries and the back­pay that would come with ac­cept­ing the SRC rec­om­men­da­tion, Im­bert said, “Well I would think so.”

The im­ple­men­ta­tion of the new salaries was an­nounced ini­tial­ly through a cir­cu­lar by the Comp­trol­ler of Ac­counts is­sued on Jan­u­ary 24, 2025.

When asked yes­ter­day if he could con­firm that they will re­ceive their high­er salaries in this month’s pay cy­cle, the Fi­nance Min­is­ter yes­ter­day said, “This is what I un­der­stand from the Comp­trol­ler of Ac­counts.”

He ad­mit­ted to hav­ing been made aware of the de­vel­op­ment in the news­pa­per. In No­vem­ber 2024, the Prime Min­is­ter was stead­fast with the Cab­i­net’s de­ci­sion to ac­cept the SRC’s 120th re­port. Since then, there have been crit­i­cisms from some quar­ters ques­tion­ing the tim­ing of the pay raise and whether it is de­served.

How­ev­er, Min­is­ter Im­bert did not en­ter­tain that top­ic. Asked what mes­sage he had for peo­ple who would not be hap­py with this de­vel­op­ment, Im­bert said, “I don’t have a mes­sage, you asked me whether the cir­cu­lar was ac­cu­rate, it is. I pre­fer not to get in­to that dis­cus­sion that has been prop­er­ly ven­ti­lat­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter on many oc­ca­sions.”

He did seek to un­der­score that politi­cians are not the on­ly peo­ple set to ben­e­fit. “There will be about 900 per­sons in­clud­ing the judges, per­ma­nent sec­re­taries, chair­men of com­mis­sions, it’s a process,” he ex­plained.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, the Prime Min­is­ter’s salary will be $80,000 from Oc­to­ber 1, 2020, to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2023, and $87,847 from Oc­to­ber 1, 2023.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader’s salary will rise from $29,590 per month to $47,500 from Oc­to­ber 1, 2020, and then to $52,159 from Oc­to­ber 1, 2023.

Speak­ing on Tues­day at her par­ty’s head­quar­ters in Ch­agua­nas, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) had no choice but to ac­cept the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion.

“Peo­ple said to me ‘Kam­la why you all don’t take it?’ I am be­ing told we can’t do that, it’s not ours, it’s not for us to do. We can’t do any­thing about it. Nor­mal­ly we de­bate it in Par­lia­ment, we will go the left side, the right side, all sides and the pub­lic would have a good view,” she ex­plained.

In De­cem­ber 2024, Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Camille Robin­son-Reg­is ex­plained to Guardian Me­dia that the re­port would on­ly have been de­bat­ed if there were any changes or amend­ments to it.

On Tues­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of be­ing “cow­ards and hyp­ocrites” by avoid­ing par­lia­men­tary ap­proval.

She said it was a slap in the face of the work­ing class.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so re­it­er­at­ed her ac­cu­sa­tion that the Prime Min­is­ter ac­cept­ed the pay raise to pre­pare for his re­tire­ment and life out­side of pol­i­tics.

Speak­ing on Stu­art Young, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “The Prime Min­is­ter has anoint­ed his suc­ces­sor and if that per­son serves one day as Prime Min­is­ter, that per­son will get for the rest of his life the salary of $87,000 per month which is the in­creased salary. Whether he serves one hour or one day for the rest of his life, he is en­ti­tled to that $87,000 for the rest of his life.”

More than $150 mil­lion in back pay will be dis­trib­uted to 118 of the of­fices re­viewed.