The earnings of politicians then and now

Mar 19, 2015 Editorial, Features / Columnists

The passage of time often blunts the reality of a situation. For example, it still holds true that time heals all wounds. In times of bereavement, the passage of time diminishes the hurt that one feels at the time of the bereavement.
Similarly, the recipients of corporal punishment should associate the pain of the punishment with whatever it was that attracted the punishment in the first instance. Sad to say, there are many who seem to be able to cast aside the memory of the punishment and easily commit a similar infraction.
The passage of time also forces us to change perceptions; to embellish past events. It is difficult to make genuine comparisons so that people always harken to the so-called good old days which in their view was always better than the present. All too often people talk about worsening standards among the succeeding generation when in fact that may not necessarily be the case.
In Guyana, the slide of the local currency has made it difficult for people to appreciate changes in prices even though their salaries do not move as appreciably as the currency does. No one without an effort can remember paying a lower price than they now do for a loaf of bread or a soda or even the cost of transportation.
House rents have gone through the roof. Houses that rented for a few local dollars now fetch hefty American dollar rents. One can make comparisons ad infinitum and a common comparison is the salaries of people then and people today. Because the Guyana dollar had slid so fast and to such depths one has a serious problem appreciating the value of money.
And so it is that one is taken aback when one examines what was earned by the political directorate just over two decades ago and what is being earned by the current crop of politicians. The evidence would suggest that the pre-1992 politicians were little better than mendicants. Given the exchange rate of $125 to the United States dollar, the Prime Minister was earning about US$260 per month. At today’s scale the Prime Minister is earning US$8,100 per month.
In reality, the figures out of the National Assembly showed that Government Ministers earned between $14,000 per month and $28,000 per month. The Attorney General was the highest paid Minister at $78,000 per month at August 1992.
The average public servant was not earning much better but for some strange reason, these persons always appeared to be affluent. One can only conclude that the cost of living was so low that such sums afforded the earner a sizeable disposable income.
Even when one takes inflation into consideration one cannot conclude that the present government did not do serious modification to the money Ministers and other senior government officials earned. People in certain public corporations earned real money, close to $100,000 per month.
Later in the year there were upward salary adjustments but even these, dollar for dollar, pale into insignificance compared to what Government officials earn today. If as the General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party say, that the pay Ministers receive ever since 1992 were adjusted downward and have increased incrementally with increases offered to public servants then Guyana should have exceedingly rich public servants.
From $28,000 per month, the Prime Minister is now earning $1.6 million per month. The PPP General Secretary had to be very wrong with his contention. The Attorney General now receives $1.7 million per month up from the kingly $78,000 his counterpart earned back in 1992. No Minister earns less than $500,000 per month.
On the other hand the most senior public servant earns slightly more than $200,000 per month unless he is the beneficiary of a contract offered by the government. Certainly the government fixed itself nicely to preside over the people and resisted like the bull going to the slaughter when public servants demanded higher wages and salaries.
Small wonder that many politicians of yesteryear did not own their own homes, while today’s crop owns mansions.

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The earnings of politicians then and now

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