There’s no magic in five percent

Dec 05, 2013 Editorial

Increasingly, public servants are taking protest action against a comment by Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon that it is unlikely that any pay hike will be above five percent. He himself said that each year he looks forward to his increase.
Five per cent would mean different things to different people. Dr. Luncheon has every right to look forward to his five per cent because it represents more than what some people take home. In fact, it represents more than what half of the working population would take home at the end of the month.
The man at the bottom of the scale—the minimum wage earner would take home $35,500 per month. He would not be required to pay taxes. He would earn slightly more when he gets a five per cent increase on his salary. That increase would be $1,775 per month, not enough to buy a 20-pound cylinder of cooking gas.
Dr. Luncheon who earns at least $800,000 per month would get an additional $40,000 per month as a result of the five per cent increase. Gail Teixeira would get slightly more as would every government minister. Bharrat Jagdeo who gets a pension of one million dollars’ a month would get an extra $50,000 per month and he would not pay one cent tax on the earnings or on the increase.
Many others are similarly bound to enjoy what is offered but the lowly public servant, among them the nurses and some doctors who are not in private practice, would continue to be hard pressed to make ends meet.
The other day as people passed by the line of protesters, they saw one placard that read, ‘Try living on what the nurses’ get’. Most of the nurses earn slightly less than what Dr. Luncheon would get as his five per cent pay rise.
It was Eric Arthur Blair whom the world knew as George Orwell who wrote the famous ‘Animal Farm’. Orwell was only forty-seven when he died but he had a grip of life’s reality. It was ‘Animal Farm’ that carried the quotation “some animals are more equal than others.” Indeed in the scheme of Guyana’s development some public servants are more important than others.
All over the world the government workers have been known to be paid a salary commensurate with their importance. Politicians are paid better than some public servants for a reason. They should be beyond reproach; they should not be caught begging or be prone to bribes.
In Guyana our politicians are not beyond reproach but the intention is that, they should be properly paid to execute their duties. That being said, nurses should not be paid as well as the Ministers of Government but they should be paid what is considered a living wage.
At one time during the People’s National Congress administration, one of the administrators decided that the across the board increases were designed to increase the gap between the lower categories of workers and those at the top.
The result was that there was a staggered increase with the largest percentage being applied to the lowest wages and salaries. This may very well have to be done again although the view in some circles is that Guyana’s Ministers are the poorest paid in the region. Given that status, they deserve a pay rise but by the same token if the Ministers are so poorly paid then more serious consideration must be given to the public servant.
But why five per cent? When the annual pay increase was first introduced the government and the Guyana Public Service Union talks had collapsed. The government decided on an increase to match the rate of inflation. There was nothing magical about the five per cent. It soon became the norm regardless of the rate of inflation.
This year the promise of five per cent remains although the experts say that the rate of inflation is less than five per cent. Howe, the public servants are saying that they deserve better. The last time they protested they received a fifty per cent increase which became eroded not long after.

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