DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion (SRC) has pro­posed hefty salary in­creas­es for Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and oth­er top state of­fi­cials. Dr Row­ley’s ba­sic pay will go up by $28,167 to $87,847. This salary hike could see Dr Row­ley out­earn the Pres­i­dent.

The 120th re­port laid in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day al­so rec­om­mend­ed in­creas­es for the Pres­i­dent, the Chief Jus­tice, the Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, the Op­po­si­tion Leader, MPs, mem­bers of the Ju­di­cia­ry, the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, and oth­er se­nior pub­lic ser­vants.

This pro­posed in­crease comes eight months af­ter a pri­or SRC pro­pos­al for wage in­creas­es for the Prime Min­is­ter and oth­er of­fi­cials was re­ject­ed.

The SRC yes­ter­day pro­posed that Dr Row­ley’s ba­sic salary should jump from $59,680 to $80,000 (a $20,320 in­crease) be­tween Oc­to­ber 1, 2020, to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2023. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, ef­fec­tive Oc­to­ber 1, 2023, Dr Row­ley’s salary will re­ceive a fur­ther bump, mov­ing to $87,847 (an in­crease of $28,167), which amounts to a to­tal in­crease of 47 per cent.

It means the Prime Min­is­ter would qual­i­fy for back pay amount­ing to $731,520 for the first three-year pe­ri­od ($20,320 x 36 months) and a fur­ther $366,171 ($28,167 x 13 months) from Oc­to­ber 1, 2023, to now, a sum of $1,097,691 be­fore tax­es. The du­ty al­lowance of $8,680, how­ev­er, would be re­moved.

Yes­ter­day’s an­nounce­ment an­gered the trade union move­ment, which has been clam­our­ing for wage in­creas­es and bet­ter work­ing con­di­tions over the last few months.

Joint Trade Union Move­ment gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ozzi War­wick, who spoke with Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing a march with postal work­ers yes­ter­day, said, “We feel that it is a slap in the face of work­ers to lay that, just to show you how dis­re­spect­ful ... they laid that in the face of work­ers protest­ing. That is ex­treme­ly dis­re­spect­ful, and we think they did it de­lib­er­ate­ly—to lay it on the day that work­ers were in the blaz­ing sun fight­ing for their just due.”

War­wick lament­ed, “It tells us that this so­ci­ety is be­com­ing deeply, deeply, deeply un­equal, un­just and un­fair, and we will once again like to state very clear­ly that there can­not be any ad­just­ment on any par­lia­men­tar­i­an salary, in par­tic­u­lar, the Prime Min­is­ter or any mem­ber of the Gov­ern­ment be­cause it is gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy that is deny­ing these work­ers—es­pe­cial­ly the postal work­ers, the port work­ers, the T&TEC work­ers—a ba­sic ad­just­ment.”

On March 6, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert told Par­lia­ment the SRC’s 117th re­port con­tained anom­alies in its job eval­u­a­tion ex­er­cise and com­pen­sa­tion sur­vey, which were de­scribed as “un­ac­cept­able and flawed” by both the Cab­i­net and Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie.

Im­bert al­so read de­tails of a let­ter from CJ Ivor Archie to the Prime Min­is­ter dat­ed Feb­ru­ary 27, 2024, in which he iden­ti­fied sev­er­al is­sues that he con­sid­ered “re­plete with in­ter­nal in­con­sis­ten­cies, de­void of jus­ti­fi­ca­tions for its rec­om­men­da­tions for the High­er Ju­di­cia­ry and oth­er ju­di­cial of­fices, premised on flawed, mis­lead­ing, and, in some cas­es, plain­ly wrong as­sump­tions.”

Ac­cord­ing to the SRC’s pro­pos­al, the Pres­i­dent’s salary would in­crease from the cur­rent $64,270 to $73,920 in an ini­tial three-year pe­ri­od from April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2023, and then in­crease fur­ther to $81,170 there­after. That would amount to a back pay of $567,100. The Pres­i­dent is not re­quired to pay tax­es.

The SRC al­so rec­om­mend­ed that the Pres­i­dent’s du­ty al­lowance of $9,650 be re­moved. The Chief Jus­tice’s salary would go from the cur­rent $50,350 to $55,477 from April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2023, and then in­crease to $60,919 from then.

Over those same pe­ri­ods, a Jus­tice of Ap­peal’s salary would rise from the cur­rent $42,020 to $46,299 ini­tial­ly, and then to $50,840, and a Puisne Judge from the cur­rent $37,300 to $41,098 ini­tial­ly, and then to $45,130.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, all three high­er ju­di­cia­ry of­fi­cials will be ex­empt from all mo­tor ve­hi­cle, VAT and cus­toms du­ties for the pur­chase of ve­hi­cles. Pre­vi­ous­ly, they were re­quired to pay a max­i­mum mo­tor ve­hi­cle tax of $30,000 and VAT of $53,000.

The Leader of the Op­po­si­tion would get an in­crease from $29,590 to $47,500 from Oc­to­ber 1, 2020, to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2023, and then to $52,159 from Oc­to­ber 1, 2023. That would qual­i­fy the Op­po­si­tion Leader for a to­tal back pay of $938,157 be­fore tax.

The Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly would get an in­crease from the cur­rent salary of $41,030 to $47,500 for the pe­ri­od Oc­to­ber 1, 2020 to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2023, and then to $52,159 from Oc­to­ber 1, 2023 on­ward. That would amount to a back pay of $377,597 be­fore tax.

Cab­i­net min­is­ters would get the same salary in­creas­es as the THA Chief Sec­re­tary. Non-cab­i­net min­is­ters are to re­ceive $39,300 from Oc­to­ber 1, 2020, to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2 023, and then $43,155 from Oc­to­ber 1, 2023, to date. MPs cur­rent salary of $17,410 will move to $20,668 from Oc­to­ber 1, 2020, to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2023, and $22,695 from Oc­to­ber 1, 2023, to the present.

Among the hun­dreds of oth­er pub­lic ser­vants in­clud­ed in the SRC re­port, the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice would get a salary in­crease from the cur­rent $31,080 to $39,300 for the pe­ri­od April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2023, and then to $43,155 from April 1, 2023 on­ward.

The Chief of De­fence Staff will al­so get an in­crease of $39,300 from April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2023, with $43,155 from April 1, 2023. Mean­while, the Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er should re­ceive $36,400 from April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2023, and $39,970 from April 1, 2023.