PUBLIC servants throughout the length and breadth of Guyana can still expect salary increases for 2021. This reassurance was given by President Dr. Irfaan Ali during a virtual press conference on Friday.

“I said earlier this year that we are committed to increases for the public servants, and that commitment will be fulfilled before the end of the year,” the Head of State said in response to media queries on the subject.

Asked specifically about meeting with the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU), President Ali said that such engagements are to be dealt with at the level of the Ministry of Finance, as well as the Ministry of Public Service.

Following criticisms from the main parliamentary opposition earlier in the year, President Ali had said, definitively, that before the end of the year, public servants will benefit from salary increases that would be retroactive.

He told a virtual press conference in August that his government’s plans for the development of public servants go far beyond salary increases. “I am not only looking at salary increases; we are also looking at the mechanisms that would allow every public servant to own their own home,” Dr. Ali had said.

He’d noted then that public servants have also been benefiting from several cash grants being disbursed by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic Government. Since the Irfaan Ali-led government assumed office in August 2020, exactly one year ago, thousands of Guyanese have been able to capitalise on the $25,000 COVID-19 cash grant, which has been given to every household in the country; there is also the ‘Because We Care’ cash grant which saw each child within the public and private school systems receiving $19,000.

Additionally, due to the unprecedented May/June 2021 floods, the government also announced some $7.8 billion worth of monetary aid for various categories of persons who have been affected.

The distribution of the various cash grants are continuing, but, in the meantime, President Ali said that efforts are still being made to ensure the well-being of not only public sector workers, but their families as well.

“We want to empower public servants so that their children, too, can benefit from the scholarship programmes…

The public servants themselves are benefitting, and we are happy about this,” President Ali said previously, as he pointed to the government’s 20,000 Online scholarship programme, which has seen thousands of Guyanese being accepted into a number of internationally-recognised universities at the expense of the government.