RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj

@guardian.co.tt

Lo­cal gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials will re­ceive retroac­tive salary in­creas­es dat­ing back to 2020, fol­low­ing the ap­proval of re­vised re­mu­ner­a­tion arrange­ments rec­om­mend­ed by the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion.

This was con­firmed in a let­ter ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, dat­ed Jan­u­ary 30 from the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment to all chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers. The let­ter made ref­er­ence to a cir­cu­lar is­sued on De­cem­ber 23, 2024 by the Min­istry of Fi­nance, which de­tailed the up­dat­ed com­pen­sa­tion pack­ages for lo­cal gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing may­ors and re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion chair­men, with retroac­tive ef­fect from April 1, 2020.

Based on the rec­om­men­da­tions, the salary of the Port-of-Spain May­or in­creased from $26,201 to $28,771 per month (ef­fec­tive April 1, 2023). May­ors for San Fer­nan­do, Ch­agua­nas, Ari­ma, and Point Fortin saw an in­crease from $23,268 to $25,550 per month, while Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Chair­men saw their salaries in­crease from $23,383 to $25,676 per month. The Chair­man-Con­ven­er of a Com­mit­tee will al­so re­ceive an ad­di­tion­al $870 per month.

The cir­cu­lar al­so ad­dressed con­di­tions re­lat­ed to va­ca­tion leave, con­firm­ing that cer­tain of­fice hold­ers, in­clud­ing top man­agers in the pub­lic ser­vice, se­nior of­fi­cers in the pro­tec­tive ser­vices, and the ju­di­cial and le­gal ser­vice, will re­tain their el­i­gi­bil­i­ty for va­ca­tion leave pro­vi­sions.

How­ev­er, as news of the in­creased salaries cir­cu­lat­ed, there were mixed views on whether the in­creas­es were war­rant­ed at this time.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Siparia May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo con­firmed re­ceipt of the let­ter but he ex­pressed con­cern.

“This is not the time to in­crease the salaries of pub­lic of­fi­cials, con­sid­er­ing a four per cent in­crease for pub­lic ser­vants, teach­ers, and a six per cent of­fer to Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies per­son­nel,” Mayrhoo said. He added, “If we are sac­ri­fic­ing, we should all make a sac­ri­fice un­til the econ­o­my re­cov­ers and can sus­tain these pay­ments in the fu­ture. I am not for the in­crease.”

How­ev­er, the chair­man of the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Gow­tam Ma­haraj, said the in­creas­es pro­posed by the SRC were backed by re­search. He ques­tioned where the funds would be com­ing from.

“The high­est pri­or­i­ty should al­ways be peo­ple. Projects such as bridges and cul­verts will not be able to be done, and peo­ple will con­tin­ue to suf­fer se­vere flood­ing. If avail­able funds are com­mit­ted to those items and projects that im­prove the lives of peo­ple at this point in time, rather than to pay high­er salaries,” Ma­haraj said.

He al­so not­ed, “Coun­cil­lors are the most un­der­paid pub­lic of­fi­cials in the world—$4,000 per month, and their sec­re­taries work for un­der min­i­mum wage. The coun­cil­lor has no per­ma­nent ben­e­fits, no gra­tu­ity.”

Mean­while, May­or of the Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj, who has been a busi­ness­man for over 65 years, said in all pro­fes­sions, in­clud­ing firms, po­lice, and pris­ons, peo­ple should be paid prop­er­ly to avoid any temp­ta­tion for cor­rup­tion.

“We must first let the pub­lic know that this was not done by the Prime Min­is­ter; it was done by the SRC. How could we over­ride a body like the SRC that did its own re­search and came up with a rec­om­men­da­tion?” Ma­haraj said.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Shane Mo­hammed said some pub­lic of­fi­cers in­clud­ing the ju­di­cia­ry, were de­serv­ing of salary in­creas­es un­der the SRC’s rec­om­men­da­tions.

“Lo­cal gov­ern­ment prac­ti­tion­ers do yeo­man ser­vice and are most times the front­lin­ers in ser­vice. They take a beat­ing where MPs and min­is­ters fail. Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans have al­ready re­ceived their in­creas­es. I think it’s on­ly fair that the lo­cal gov­ern­ment fra­ter­ni­ty re­ceives their due,” he said.

As it per­tains to cost and tim­ing, Mo­hammed said: “That nar­ra­tive of cost and bad tim­ing is be­com­ing mun­dane.”

When con­tact­ed Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi de­ferred com­ment.

In the SRC’s 120th re­port, the month­ly earn­ings of 206 of­fices, in­clud­ing the Prime Min­is­ter and Pres­i­dent, were eval­u­at­ed but it is un­cer­tain when the oth­er in­creas­es will be rolled out.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day for com­ment but no re­sponse was re­ceived.