– Qualification allowances to make Public Service attractive to qualified candidates

SENIOR Minister within the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance and the Public Service Dr Ashni Singh has said that the increases announced by President, Dr Irfaan Ali on Tuesday will see an additional injection of about $7 billion into the disposable incomes of about 33,000 government employees.

The minister made these remarks during a recorded interview in which he indicated that this equates to a substantial injection into the economy of additional disposable income and a significant injection into individual households across the country.
Dr Singh added, “It’s been a very, very significant day in the interest of the working people of Guyana and in particular in the interest of public servants in Guyana.”
To this end, Dr Singh noted that the announcements reflect the achievement of a multi-year agreement with the Guyana Public Service Union.
The conclusion of this multi-year agreement with the GPSU, he added, is an extremely historic development.

“We have always said publicly that we would like to conclude multi-year agreements with the representatives of public sector employees and we have worked towards this objective for a number of years,” the senior minister remarked.
Against this backdrop, he highlighted that just a few months ago, the government was also able to conclude agreements with the Guyana Teachers’ Union.
He added, “The fact that we’ve been able to engage with organised labour in this manner, first the GTU and now the GPSU, that too is a very positive development.”

As part of the package for public servants, the President announced the payment of allowances for higher education and qualifications, including for the attainment of professional accounting qualifications, postgraduate degrees, master degrees, and doctoral degrees.
This, Dr Singh said, enables the government as an employer to make the Public Service more attractive to more qualified candidates as he indicated they want to raise the quality of the qualifications of the persons they are able to attract and retain in the Public Service.
“It creates an incentive for more qualified people to work in the Public Service and to remain in the Public Service and of course on top of all of that, more qualified people should lead to better quality delivery of public services,” he said.

Further to this, the minister said that the agreement with the union also has other features such as ‘de-bunching’ in relation to the various salary scales, as there may be persons of varying numbers of years of experience within those scales.
In recognition of the fact that experience and longevity should be acknowledged and rewarded, he said that the first six bands in the Public Service from “GS 1 to GS 6,” persons who have attained in the first instance four years will be adjusted up to the midpoint of that scale and those persons who have been in their respective scales for a minimum of eight years will be adjusted upwards to the maximum of their scales.
He iterated that this move acknowledges longevity, rewards it, and also acknowledges experience.

Additionally, Dr Singh stated that the multi-year agreement makes a number of upward adjustments to several allowances, such as travel allowances and includes scholarships for public servants.
Particularly for the nursing profession, the agreement caters for the provision of 100 duty-free concessions every year for members of the nursing profession, from staff nurses to more senior nurses.

Providing further details, he said that what this does annually will see a cohort of the 100 most experienced nurses, who will be able to access duty-free concessions, whereas previously they were unable to do that.

He expressed, “So we are, as a government, we are extremely pleased that we have been able to conclude this two-year agreement with the GPSU, because that is our preferred mode of engagement — multi-year agreements with the unions.
He added that while agreements have been made with the GPSU and the GTU; the government has also concluded a three-year agreement with the University of Guyana and the two unions that represent workers there.
Employees there will receive the same rates of salary increases that were awarded to the teachers under the agreement with the GTU.