A simple explanation of the Ministers’ salary increase

Oct 18, 2015 Features / Columnists, My Column

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These past few days saw comments, demonstrations and angry conversations involving many Guyanese both at home and in the Diaspora. This is not to say that this is anything strange because as a people we do these things ever so often. Someone always has a grouse that he needs to bring to public attention.
But this particular issue grabbed attention because it is rather unusual for the nation to learn that Government Ministers actually do get a pay rise. But they have been getting pay rises for as long as there has been inflation and as long as there have been governments.
The first thing that grabbed the attention was that the Ministers had received a 50 per cent pay rise. Immediately I did my research to ascertain the veracity of this statement. I concluded that if this were the case then what was happening was that some Ministers were being made filthy rich and others were being given money to make them comfortable.
I soon found out that there was no 50 per cent across the board increase. Instead, some Ministers got a 50 per cent increase while some got five per cent and some got more than 50 per cent. But I couldn’t help but notice that the 50 per cent claim seems to have stuck.
When the Granger-led administration came into office Ministers were earning in the vicinity of $579,000 per month. But they were not always earning this kind of money. When the People’s National Congress demitted office the pay of a senior Minister was $20,483.41 per month. The Prime Minister was earning $28,725.83 and the Deputy Prime Minister was earning $24,329.84. The Attorney General was earning $78,100 per month.
The Opposition Leader was getting $14,988.41. A Junior Minister was getting that same pay.
At the start of this year the Prime Minister was earning $1,549,389 while a Minister was earning $579.951. The Opposition Leader was getting the same pay as a Minister and the Attorney General was earning $1,630,935 per month.
A lot of people hate having to read figures but the same figures have catapulted many of them onto the streets and have them writing letters to the press.
I hasten to say that the pay did not jump to what it was in January by magic. About four months after Dr Cheddi Jagan came to office the pay of a Minister jumped to over $40,000. He recognized that he had to pay his ministers well so he hiked their pay by more than 50 per cent almost immediately.
That pay is a far cry from the $579,951 that they were earning right up to the announcement of this increase. There were steady increases but these were not broadcast because people somehow seemed not to care. Indeed, the media did not race to report on these things and even if they did, the late Janet Jagan always asked them not to do anything to threaten the fledgling democracy. We shut our mouths.
For the Prime Minister to have his salary jump from $28,000 to $1.5 million was no ordinary thing in a country like Guyana and go unnoticed. But there were no protests or complaints.
This is not to say that what was happening during the tenure of the People’s Progressive Party should be copied by the present administration. Yet I remember the then President Donald Ramotar saying to me that he was contemplating paying his Ministers more because their earnings were inadequate. Perhaps that is why he is silent on this issue at this time.
When I heard of this increase I called the Minister of Finance and asked him about the veracity of what was being said. He told me that there was a review of the salary structure because there were anomalies. He told me that Ms Sandra Jones was conducting the analysis and that she would submit her findings when it was over.
It turned out that Ms Jones recommended more than is actually being awarded to the Ministers but the administration thought that the recommendation could not be adopted for the same reasons that the people are protesting today.
The anomalies of which he spoke were the difference in pay between the Attorney General and the other Ministers, and the fact that there were now Vice Presidents who would have to be paid more than the Ministers.
The People’s Progressive Party had done well to ensure that the huge gap between the Prime Minister and the Attorney General ($28,725.83 to $78,100) was closed to the point where there was not much difference in their salaries. We heard nothing about that. It did not matter that the salary of the Attorney General is tax free while the Prime Minister must pay his taxes.
The fact is that there had to be a salary structure between the Ministers and the Vice Presidents. There also had to be an adjustment for the Junior Ministers.
My intention is not to defend anyone because I am certain that they can defend themselves but I could not help notice that the matron of the Georgetown Public Hospital was earning more than a Minister. There was also the fact that there were contract employees, some of them retirees who were taking home million-dollar salaries.
How can one justify the salary paid to the head of Guyana Power and Light, in excess of $3 million per month and his deputy who was earning more than $2 million per month and still lambaste a Minister for being paid a proper salary for a thankless job?
Some of us then look at what was paid to public servants, contending that they were paid a ‘measly’ five per cent. The pay they received was more than five per cent but I am not going to split hairs. Suffice it to say that the public servants are being addressed.
There is another mathematical computation that needs to be done. It is a far cry from paying monumental increases to more than 5,000 people than it is to pay the same increase to no more than 15. The numbers would be far different in the end.
I remember when the government was required to pay a 50 per cent increase to public servants at the culmination of the Armstrong tribunal in 1999. Three years later the public servants were no better off because rampant inflation took what they had got and celebrated. Ever since then public servants have been asking for more.
As for the Ministers, I do not begrudge them because there are so many others walking around and earning as much as three times what the Ministers earn, although that does not mean that these Ministers should get super salaries.
In 1992 when Mr Bovell who headed the Guyana Electricity Corporation was earning $140,000 a month, Cheddi Jagan deemed that he was earning a super salary and terminated his service. He then moved on to pay his ministers the same super salaries.
In any case, Raphael Trotman hit the nail on the head when he said that any pay to Government would incur the ire of the public. Yet one should let commonsense prevail.

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