Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Colm Im­bert MP, has de­scribed as “ex­treme­ly mis­lead­ing and un­truth­ful”, a head­line and ar­ti­cle in a dai­ly news­pa­per, which re­port­ed on com­ments he made in Par­lia­ment con­cern­ing the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ment for Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board (NIB) work­ers.

The min­is­ter was re­spond­ing to a ques­tion raised on the mat­ter, by Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark.

Ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter Im­bert, he was wrong­ly quot­ed in the ar­ti­cle, which claims Gov­ern­ment is un­able to pay NIB work­ers some $7 bil­lion.  How­ev­er, the min­is­ter as­serts that what he had in fact said was that the $7 bil­lion rep­re­sents Gov­ern­ment’s cur­rent debt to all pub­lic sec­tor work­ers.

The full text of the Min­is­ter clar­i­fy­ing state­ment, fol­lows…

EX­PRESS AR­TI­CLE ON STATE­MENTS MADE BY THE MIN­IS­TER OF FI­NANCE ON A COL­LEC­TIVE AGREE­MENT AT THE NIB IS EX­TREME­LY MIS­LEAD­ING AND UN­TRUTH­FUL

The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, the Ho­n­ourable Colm Im­bert, M.P., has tak­en note of an ex­treme­ly mis­lead­ing and un­truth­ful head­line and ar­ti­cle in the Dai­ly Ex­press to­day, re­gard­ing state­ments he made in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day re­gard­ing a re­cent col­lec­tive agree­ment be­tween the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board (NIB) and the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA).

The Ex­press has pub­lished a head­line in bold print on Page 3 of to­day’s pa­per as fol­lows:

“Im­bert: Govt Can’t Pay $7B to NIB Work­ers”.

How­ev­er, the Min­is­ter nev­er said this or any­thing close to this and this un­truth­ful head­line and sto­ry have cre­at­ed mis­chief and caused con­fu­sion with­in the NIB and the Trade Union.

For the record, the ques­tion posed to the Min­is­ter by Sen­a­tor Wade Mark was as fol­lows:

“Can the Min­is­ter in­di­cate when all out­stand­ing ar­rears aris­ing out of a re­cent­ly con­clud­ed col­lec­tive agree­ment be­tween the PSA and the NIB would be paid?”

And the an­swer giv­en by the Min­is­ter was:

“This is a com­pli­cat­ed mat­ter, since the col­lec­tive agree­ment in ques­tion was not au­tho­rized by the Min­is­te­r­i­al Com­mit­tee es­tab­lished to mon­i­tor the con­duct of wage and salary ne­go­ti­a­tions, now en­ti­tled the Hu­man Re­source Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee of Cab­i­net, as re­quired by the di­rec­tions giv­en by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, through the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Fi­nance, to the Chair­man of the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board on March 25, 2011, and is thus at vari­ance with the pro­vi­sions of Sec­tion 9 of the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Act Chap. 32:01.The con­se­quences of the agree­ment are al­so far-reach­ing and could re­sult in tremen­dous ex­pense to tax­pay­ers, if used as a prece­dent. Ac­cord­ing­ly, the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance is seek­ing ad­vice on the mat­ter.”

Fur­ther, in re­sponse to a fol­low up ques­tion from Sen­a­tor Mark, the Min­is­ter said that if the wage in­crease in the NIB agree­ment was ap­plied to ALL work­ers in the PUB­LIC SEC­TOR, it would cost tax­pay­ers $7 Bil­lion.

The Ex­press chose to mis­lead the pub­lic by false­ly claim­ing that the Min­is­ter said that the cost to the NIB was $7 Bil­lion. In oth­er words, ac­cord­ing to the Ex­press, the en­tire $7 Bil­lion was to be paid to the NIB work­ers. It is lit­tle won­der that NIB work­ers are con­fused about this is­sue to­day, as a di­rect re­sult of the mis­chief of the Ex­press.

Fur­ther, in its quest to scan­dal­ize and dis­tort the Min­is­ter’s true state­ments, the Ex­press di­min­ished and min­i­mized the re­al is­sue, which is that the col­lec­tive agree­ment was unau­tho­rized and in breach of a Min­is­te­r­i­al di­rec­tive giv­en in 2011 un­der the for­mer UNC Gov­ern­ment.

This is high­ly ir­re­spon­si­ble jour­nal­ism at its worst.