With Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo an­nounc­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s plan to be­gin the promised pub­lic sec­tor wage ne­go­ti­a­tions at ten per cent in fis­cal 2026, some pub­lic ser­vants are rel­ish­ing the prospect of hav­ing more mon­ey to cov­er their ex­pens­es.

Al­though the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) and the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) signed off on a five per cent wage in­crease for the pe­ri­od 2020 to 2023 ear­li­er this year, its pres­i­dent, Mar­tin Lum Kin, wel­comed Tan­coo’s an­nounce­ment. The Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) said mem­bers are cau­tious­ly op­ti­mistic.

The Joint Trade Union Move­ment said it is “ful­ly con­fi­dent” in Gov­ern­ment ful­fill­ing its promis­es, while the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), which rep­re­sents the bulk of pub­lic ser­vants, ex­pressed its mem­bers’ ex­cite­ment.

Tan­coo’s an­nounce­ment marks a step for­ward on the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment’s gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign pledge to be­gin pub­lic sec­tor wage ne­go­ti­a­tions at 10 per cent. Speak­ing at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre on Thurs­day, the Fi­nance Min­is­ter con­firmed that ne­go­ti­a­tions for a pro­posed 10 per cent salary in­crease will com­mence in the up­com­ing fi­nan­cial year, with a res­o­lu­tion ex­pect­ed with­in the same fis­cal pe­ri­od.

PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas said yes­ter­day that Gov­ern­ment had al­ways giv­en as­sur­ances that it would de­liv­er.

“I could imag­ine my mem­bers, they are ex­cit­ed, but it is not some­thing that we did not have the con­fi­dence would hap­pen,” Thomas said.

On Thurs­day, Tan­coo al­so cau­tioned the pub­lic to “ta­per” their bud­get ex­pec­ta­tions. Dur­ing the mid-year bud­get re­view, he de­scribed the econ­o­my as be­ing in the “in­ten­sive care unit” and pro­ject­ed a $9.67 bil­lion bud­get deficit. On the cam­paign trail, for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young had claimed the UNC’s wage in­crease pro­pos­al was fi­nan­cial­ly un­re­al­is­tic, stat­ing that ful­fill­ing such a promise would re­quire an es­ti­mat­ed $2 bil­lion. Econ­o­mists al­so raised con­cerns that Gov­ern­ment’s promised wage in­crease was not fi­nan­cial­ly vi­able and could fu­el in­fla­tion. They ar­gued the pledge posed a fis­cal risk and could lead to in­creased bor­row­ing or high­er tax­es.

Com­ment­ing on the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the in­crease in state ex­pen­di­ture, Thomas ques­tioned whether it was fi­nan­cial­ly sus­tain­able for the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment to fund large rent pay­ments to for­mer lo­cal gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi. She ac­cused the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment of pri­ori­tis­ing it­self while ig­nor­ing pub­lic of­fi­cers.

“The ques­tion of eco­nom­ic sus­tain­abil­i­ty has noth­ing to do with whether or not the coun­try has the fi­nances. It has to do with pri­ori­tis­ing the fi­nances, and that is what this Gov­ern­ment has done.”

Mean­while, POA pres­i­dent Ger­ard Gor­don ex­plained that, like most pub­lic ser­vants, prison of­fi­cers are anx­ious and hope­ful that ne­go­ti­a­tions will be­gin and be set­tled in a way that im­proves their stan­dard of liv­ing.

“We are cau­tious­ly op­ti­mistic. What we would like to en­sure is that we have ne­go­ti­a­tions oc­cur in an en­vi­ron­ment of good faith. I think that is the foun­da­tion for all par­ties to feel that they have tak­en part in a process where they were heard and where they would have got­ten what they want­ed, most­ly,” Gor­don said.

Lum Kin said TTUTA looked for­ward to the read­ing of the 2026 fis­cal pack­age to see what was in store.

“We are op­ti­mistic, based up­on the rev­e­la­tion of the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, that even though TTUTA would have set­tled for that pe­ri­od, there will be the op­por­tu­ni­ty to have that ap­plied to the Teach­ing Ser­vice as well,” he said.

He added that the 2023 to 2026 pe­ri­od re­mains out­stand­ing.