Opposition Leader Bruce Golding says a canvass among members of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) will have to be conducted to determine if they support Opposition Spokesman on Finance Audley Shaw's suggestion that politicians should be paid based on performance.
"It's a matter that would have to be determined in the party because what he (Mr. Shaw) expressed was a personal opinion," Mr. Golding told The Gleaner yesterday.
Mr. Shaw said, during his contribution to a debate in the House of Representatives last week, that the salaries of Members of Parliament (MPs) should be linked to performance.
"I believe, Mr. Speaker, that if a Government is running a country in such a way that the economy is not growing, I don't believe that the compensation of the politicians should grow," Mr. Shaw argued during a debate on a motion to increase the pay of MPs in line with increases to public sector workers under the second Memorandum of Understanding.
He said there were models in which politicians were paid based on the performance of the economy. He also gave a personal commitment that he would implement this performance-based compensation if he were to ever become a Minister of Finance.
During a mass meeting at Black River Square in St. Elizabeth on Friday night, Mr. Golding urged parliamentarians to forego their recently- approved wage increases until the current crisis in the nursing sector was resolved. He challenged Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller to take charge of the wage negotiations for the nurses and policemen to bring the "dangerous" national crisis to an end.
