PUBLIC servants can look forward to a brighter Christmas with the recent announcement by Minister in the Office of the President with Responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh.

Dr Singh on Thursday announced that all public servants will benefit from a seven per cent increase on their salaries, effective January 1, 2021. The announcement is in keeping with a commitment made earlier by President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali that public servants will be receiving a salary hike this year.

Salary increases have become something of an expected norm ever since the PPP/C took office in October 5, 1992. It will be recalled that one of the first things done by the new PPP/C administration was to substantially increase wages and salaries which were highly depressed under the PNC regime. Salaries and wages increased by 20 per cent in 1993 and an income supplement was also given to those in the lower income bracket. Increases were consistently made each year since then to a point where some measure of respectability was put on public sector earnings.

The increase offered public servants is across the board which was quite unlike what transpired under the former APNU+AFC regime when government ministers and senior functionaries were given hefty increases on their salaries, while public servants were given token increases. Moreover, the increases given by the present administration comes at a time when several interventions were already made to cushion the impact of the recent floods and the COVID-19, which, when seen alongside increases in pensions, water and electricity subsidies for pensioners have cumulatively provided much-needed relief to the more vulnerable segment of the population. Sugar workers were also given $250,000 each in addition to severance payments.

In addition to the salary increase, government will also from this year seek to correct salary anomalies and disparities which again will result in greater equity in remuneration levels. Persons with similar levels of qualifications will no longer receive differentiated levels of remuneration depending on where there are employed in government agencies.

The PPP/C administration is committed to ensuring that the real wages and salaries of public sector employees are not only protected, but are also incrementally increased. This current increase is yet another step in that regard.

There are some in the opposition camp who would argue that the increases are not ‘substantial’ enough and would no doubt seek to make political capital out of what they opportunistically perceive to be ‘too little too late.’ There are a number of fallacies in such an argument. First, the increase is ahead of the current inflation rate, which means in effect that the basket of goods and services for the average public servant will be bigger. Second, the increase is retroactive, which will allow for a lumpsum payment at a time when some extra income is most needed and third, the increase will build on an incentive package payable to nurses; those who are frontline workers in the administering of care and treatment in the COVID-19 pandemic environment.

Government has a responsibility to protect the gains of the workers by ensuring that inflation is kept in check and that salary increases are not devoured by high inflation rates as happened under the PNC regime. In other words, real income, as opposed to money income, must be the important catchword. The PPP/C administration has done an excellent job in terms of increasing real wages. This is why any attempt to increase salaries and wages beyond sustainable levels could result in inflationary tendencies and the average worker will be poorer with every increase, as past experiences under the PNC regime had demonstrated.