The Ministers Salary Increases

–has the government lost touch with reality in five months?

SALARY increases for political members of government are always unpopular among the masses and will always be. They have seen too many politicians move from living ordinary lives to living like royalty when they get into government. So they have always viewed salary increases for politicians with heightened suspicion. It is almost a contradiction—the very masses who lift the politicians up to the sky would rage when those same politicians raise their pay. So I am not surprised that the government has come under fire for this move from its own supporters.
For me, the issue is not whether the salaries should be increased or not. Like all workers, government ministers are underpaid. But of course, some workers are more underpaid than others. And government ministers do not fall into the latter category. But, if the truth is to be told, our ministers’ salaries, even with this raise, are low compared to their counterparts in the rest of the Caribbean. Those salary increases would not dent the treasury.
But it is not the money that drives the protest, it is the politics and the principle which underpin it. There are three things at work here. First, the government just gave poor people a reasonable but not spectacular salary increase. Second, thanks to the PPP’s track record in government, the issue of government as a source of unjust enrichment for ministers has become part of popular rage against government. Third, the PPP is aggressively moving to silence its excesses while in government by pinning them on the current government. These factors should have influenced the decision on the increases. That they did not, suggests political naivety, arrogance, insensitivity or all of them. Worse, it suggests that in five months the government may already be out of touch with the realities of life on the ground.
Often it is not just what government does, but the manner in which things are done. My test on this issue is not the protest of the PPP–that protest is mostly grounded in the need to embarrass the government for doing what the now opposition did when in government just a few months ago. Rather, my test is the protest of government supporters or those not deemed to be hostile to the government. Many of these people who welcomed this government with unprecedented enthusiasm are not happy about this move and are openly voicing their disapproval on social media and in the conventional media. Others, I am sure, are shaking their heads in dismay in their villages or in the privacy of their homes.
Government should always tread carefully on sensitive matters. And this is a sensitive matter. Although the salary increase is not a form of enrichment, it should not be surprising that the masses see it in that light. This is part of our doing; we on the government side correctly helped to sharpen mass distaste for government overspending. So coming so soon after the election when memories of the PPP’s behaviour are still fresh, these salary increases are bound to excite negative responses. The increases should not have been pursued this early. But if the government felt pressed to do it, it should have been done in small increments.
This is the second big misstep by the government; the first being the initial naming of members to the State boards. I think the government has misread the feelings of its own supporters on these matters and this is worrying. I have said before that one of the weaknesses of this government is its inability to ground more with the masses and consult more. If these had been pursued more aggressively, the government would have known that these moves would not find favour with their supporters. I am sure the government would recover from this blow, but the accumulation of these mistakes over time could alienate its supporters and further embolden the opposition. I hope the government gets the message– “watch what you doing.”