Amid an ongoing controversy over significant salary hikes for ministers, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo waded into the fray yesterday saying that the increases were necessary to offset the loss of earnings that the officials will face in public office.
“You have to take recognition, as we did when bauxite was nationalized, as sugar was nationalised, the promise on the agreement was the workers would have no less favourable conditions that they enjoyed prior to the nationalisation. So if someone came into government, you must expect them to give their service, their commitment and their loyalty but the condition under which they came the financial condition ought not to be no less favourable than what they enjoyed the day before they were sworn in,” Nagamootoo said at the post cabinet press briefing at the Ministry of the Presidency yesterday.
According to him, the public outcry at this point is comparable to beating a dead horse.
The PM’s take on the rationale for the increase was challenged by reporters who said that to take up public office was a choice.
But, according to the Prime Minister, there are a number of lawyers in the cabinet that would have given up their private practice, and, as a result, there was an expectation that they would be compensated accordingly.
He said that the Attorney General’s $1.5M monthly salary was always designated in such a way to take that into consideration.
“It’s not that we changed. It’s that we wanted to put in a system that would allow us to govern better and it’s not the quantity of the money. It’s the principle of correcting the anomalies that had existed,” he said.
“I say this again there is no way an attorney general that is an attorney would get more money than Nagamootoo which is an attorney there is nothing that justifies it,” the PM said while adding that “any numbers could have been agreed for me, for the Prime Minister and it would have been fine.”
Attempting to further justify the controversial move by the new government, Nagamootoo said that the pay hikes affected 27 persons as opposed to 27,000. He blamed bad public relations on the part of the government for the outcry saying that the increases were not “packaged properly.”
He made no reference as to why the increases were not printed in the APNU+AFC coalition’s manifesto alongside the promised 20% public service increase, which did not come to fruition.
According to him, public office has to be alluring and if it was not, persons would not seek such office. “There has been a backlash because people are holding us to a higher standard. They are expecting that this government that says it is a people government and would deal with people’s interest and address the standards of living, would expect this government to deal lean as well as clean,” he said.
Even as Nagamootoo acknowledged the flaw in the government delivery of the news of the increase, he avoided giving concise answers to questions posed by the media and instead spoke about salary increases in the past.
In relation to the backlash, he said that “this rage has run its course.”
Further, he downplayed the 50% increase to some government ministers, saying that he was the recipient of a 10% increase and the figures being circulated are not accurate.
According to the Official Gazette, Cabinet ministers will now receive $10,439,124 annually, a 50% increase from what was previously stated in the Principal Act. Their monthly earnings will be just under $870,000 from the $579,000 monthly under the previous administration.
Vice Presidents, other than the PM, are to be paid $11,135,064 per annum. Junior Ministers of Government will earn $8,346,492, an over 16% increase from the annual salary of a Cabinet minister under the former administration who were earning $6,959,412 annually.
Nagamootoo will now receive $20,580,000 annually, an over $2M increase from what was previously stipulated in the Principal Act, taking his monthly salary to over $1.7M.
