Now that President Granger has spoken it appears that the APNU+AFC administration has decided there will be no turning back on the much decried salary increases for ministers which range as high as 50% for Cabinet members. What a blunder. The self-awarding of these hikes for the Cabinet ministers will remain etched in the psyche of the populace as a palpable violation of the principled behaviour which the new government had so fervently promised on the campaign trail and after entering office. The increases are also illogical when compared with the varied promises of this months-old government and the charges it had levelled at its predecessor.
Recognising that the state of the economy could not sustain a reduction in the Value Added Tax rate as had been promised in its manifesto, the administration sensibly backpedalled in favour of a comprehensive study on the way forward. Conscious that the economy could not support the promised substantial wage hike for public servants or at least the 20% and 10% that had been mentioned at various points, the government reversed course in favour of a much smaller package. There was hardly an outcry. Despite promises of a substantial improvement in the circumstances for pensioners, the real increase in this year’s budget was slight when the reclamation of utility subsidies was factored in. How then could the executive and its Cabinet ministers be so callous as to award a salary hike of 50%? Is there no conscience bestirring in the Cabinet? Is there no concept of solidarity with the working class until such time as a larger increase is possible? Is there no calling at all for deferred gratification particularly from among those who are in a better position to withstand the travails of the economy and who also have a range of benefits to cushion their existence? Shocking.
Awarding these increases also jars resoundingly with the policy orientation of the government. It has established a commission of inquiry to look into the public service and had promised in its manifesto that an Independent Constitutional Salaries Review Commission would be established for the periodic review of conditions for persons appointed to constitutional offices including the President, Prime Minister, judges, MPs and others. Undoubtedly, one of the tasks of this commission would have been to erase the salaries anomaly that currently exists and which has been floated as one reason for the increase. Can it be logical and sensible that in the backdrop of this expected review the government would award what would have to be a final increase for the year and the foreseeable future and not even an interim increase which could then be subject to adjustment on completion of the review? The payout to public servants would not have been expected to be detained by this review of salaries as the coalition had made a specific manifesto promise to pay a significant increase once it entered office. To the contrary, there was no promise in the APNU+AFC manifesto that the salaries of Cabinet ministers would be raised by 50%. If as President Granger says the decision was not taken lightly then surely there should been some engagement with various stakeholders and the public on the propriety and wisdom of the decision at this point. There was none. Duplicity came first in the utterances by Minister Trotman followed by the gazetting of the order which formalises the decision.
Far from being seized with the desire to serve the public and imbue good governance, the Cabinet will now be seen as seeking the good life for itself first without having earned its spurs. Five months in office can hardly be considered an adequate period to evaluate performance much less award a hefty increase. If the government’s thinking was that raises for 15,000 public servants could not be afforded but that increases for Cabinet as a tiny subset could be funded where will this logically take the country? Maybe specialists in the public health system can now look forward to a 50% hike next year, perhaps permanent secretaries or road engineers in the Ministry of Public Infrastructure?
A series of unconvincing explanations and justifications has flowed from various government officials including President Granger. They encompass that the ministers are of a certain quality, with loads of work and working hard. Who is arriving at these assessments? Are the Cabinet ministers themselves deciding how well they are doing and the size of their workloads? Where is the promised code of conduct that members of the public can begin examining their ministers on? The scale of the increases would also suggest that the more competent PPP/C ministers, some of whom had spent several years in office were being underpaid by 50%. Much has also been made of the presumed living standards of the APNU+AFC ministers before entering office and their earnings. As the Sunday Stabroek editorial of October 11, 2015 noted, the ministers were selected to serve the public and should have looked elsewhere if lucrative pay was what was sought. For the record, however, the public now has a right to know exactly how much these ministers were earning before in their varied occupations even if that is no basis for agreeing swingeing increases for them. Their returns for this year and the preceding one should be the first set received by a revived Integrity Commission for examination.
Yet another explanation profferred was that differentiation in salaries had to be established among ministers and also to cater for the appointment of Vice Presidents. This was just as unconvincing. Ministers aware that a structured framework was being developed for remuneration and benefits should hardly be concerned that they were all earning the same. Further, the agreement for Vice Presidents to be appointed was mere political expediency for the Cummingsburg Accord between APNU+AFC which was so quickly violated when the coalition entered office. The appointment of Vice Presidents is a relic of ill-advised socialist experiments and a discredited Burnhamite past. It has no place in modern governance. It is but a Christmas tree decoration. Even so, the country has had Vice Presidents before. All APNU+AFC needed to do was simply mirror what the Vice President/s of the 80s were paid with cost of living adjustments. A precedent existed.
Hollow now rings the ferocious and unrelenting attacks by APNU and the AFC on the PPP/C and former President Jagdeo during the last two governments. The excesses of Mr Jagdeo have been well established and developed over a period of 12 years and the public wants to see an accounting for his accumulation of wealth. Yet this Cabinet has set off inauspiciously, just months in office, with a massive increase and no basis on which to judge it. Can it credibly level the charge of extravagance without it coming back like a boomerang?
A larger problem for the APNU+AFC government is that trust with the people has been broken. After waiting 22+ years for a change in government and having heard lofty promises of equitable and judicious governance a good number of coalition supporters will become disillusioned and less trusting of the administration. The moral high ground has begun to erode. The distance between the coalition and its predecessor is not as dizzying as it once was. No more shall its word be taken with the same level of trust as before. All of this serves to weaken the government and make it less effective in marshalling goodwill and support for larger projects such as national unity, staunching the migration of skills, attracting re migrants, economic transformation and of course making sacrifices with the future in mind. The increases will also become a lightning rod for public disaffection. The government has a long road ahead. It has already erred with appointments, board compositions and sharing of responsibilities among coalition partners. What is clear is that a line has now been drawn in the sand by the 50% salary increase. Any other transgressions of this scale will rapidly undermine its believability.
