THERE WAS some speculation that the Government would have rolled back the 10 per cent salary increase to parliamentarians in the face of mounting public criticism. It didn't happen.
Instead, in a rather deft touch, the Prime Minister has appointed yet another committee, this one to review parliamentary salaries, and has stipulated that no further increases will be granted until the committee completes its review.
The increase to parliamentarians that was introduced without fanfare has become something of an albatross around the neck of the administration. Public sector workers who have been offered increases of three per cent have pointed to the disparity between their proposed increases and that given to the parliamentarians. The militant stance of the medical technologists and now the teachers has been fuelled partly by their resentment of what they regard as an unjust disparity.
The Government has squandered a great deal of public goodwill by the size of the increase, which they have, in the words of the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions, (JCTU) arrogated unto themselves. The public outrage has not been lessened by the argument that salary increases had not been granted to parliamentarians for some time and that the latest increase was in fact a catching up exercise to adjust the anomalies between their pay and that of Permanent Secretaries.
In setting up the committee Mr. Patterson has placed a freeze on a 20 per cent salary adjustment, which would have come to the parliamentarians in April, another 20 per cent increase that was due in April next year and a 30 per cent increase that was to be paid in April of 2005.
The committee, which has the support of the Opposition, is to examine whether the formula now in place for adjusting parliamentary salaries will be maintained, changed or abandoned.
We urge the committee in doing its work to look at mechanisms that are used in other countries to set and adjust public sector salaries; in particular to assess whether there should be an automatic link between what is paid to administrative public officials and elected representatives. Setting performance-based criteria should be a critical element of the exercise.
In the meantime, like it or not, the 103 per cent increase remains and the parliamentarians will benefit from $91 million in back-pay that has already been paid out to them.
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