THE Government of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana (GCRG) has noted the attempts at continued distortion and misrepresentation regarding the recent salary adjustments for government officials.The most recent is a letter which appeared in a section of the local press on Monday, November 16, 2015, under the headline: “Why is President Granger’s salary tax free?”

The letter-writer, PPP backbencher Charles Ramson Jr., asks: “How do you justify the President and the Attorney General’s salaries being tax free?”.

A government statement issued yesterday by the Director of Public Information, Mr Imran Khan, said the records show that former presidents Bharrat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar enjoyed monthly tax-free salary packages to the tune of $1,755,935.

The former PPP Attorney General Anil Nandlall and his PPP predecessors also enjoyed tax-free salaries last fixed at a whopping $1.6 million.

“Mr. Ramson may wish to ask what justifies those tax-free salaries,” the statement said.

The government wishes to also “clarify the misrepresentation that ALL senior government officials” have received a 50% increase in salary. “This is not so,” the Government declared.

His Excellency President David Granger received a 5% salary increase. The President’s salary compares with the amount received as pension by former Presidents Jagdeo, Ramotar and Samuel Hinds who get a total of $4,508,391 monthly or $54,100,692 annually.

The pension excludes an assorted array of perks.

In the recent salary adjustment, the Prime Minister received an increase of 5.6% over the salary of the Attorney General to correct an anomaly in the pay structure. After tax, the Prime Minister gets less pay than the Attorney General.

The government also noted that, for the first time, salaries were set for three vice-presidents in the sum of $927,922 each. The vice-presidents’ salaries are almost on par with that of the former Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr. Roger Luncheon, who had received in excess of a million dollars per month ($1,035,900).
The salaries of 13 senior ministers was fixed at $869,927 each, which is 50% more than the salaries of junior ministers.

However the senior ministers get far less in salaries than former Presidential Adviser Gail Teixeira, whose salary package was $1,121,106 monthly (million dollar phone credit not included).

The eight junior ministers received an increase of 20% from $579,951 to $695,541 which is within the range of a permanent secretary’s salary.

From the President, down to junior ministers, no one in the executive came close to the multi-million-dollar super salaries under the previous regime which were paid to the former chief executive officers of the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) and the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), etc, or even to a former president’s son who was paid in excess of $3 million per month as head of the failed e-Governance project.

The government said it has also been noted, in passing, that the PPP backbencher Mr. Ramson, drew down and pocketed a substantial $430,196 every month for “moonlighting” on a dubious part-time attachment with the then Office of the President, while simultaneously enjoying a full private legal practice. “Mr. Ramson may wish to ask himself what justifies that hefty slice from the taxpayers’ purse,” the statement posited.