Skerrit

ROSEAU (CMC):

A former government minister says parliamentarians should be made to justify any increase in salaries at this time, insisting hikes should come with strict conditions of performance.

Atherton Martin, a former Agriculture Minister, rejected as flawed, the findings of a committee which was set up to review the salaries of parliamentarians.

"While I would agree that there is the need for upgrading the salaries of the policy makers, that must go along with some conditionalities," Martin told state radio. "Our policy makers must also be required to achieve a certain level of standard of operation to justify their salaries ... there are flaws in the recommendations. If someone is employed with a corporation, they get a salary increase on the basis of his performance."

Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit announced last Wednesday that Cabinet had approved the recommendations of the special committee to have the salaries of parliamentarians increased by 52 per cent. The Prime Minister told Parliament that an increase for parliamentarians was long overdue and that government would no longer delay the implementation of the recommendations.

Meanwhile, International Monetary Fund economist Dr. Thompson Fontaine said government should be concerned about the signal the recommendations send to civil servants.

"It opens an opportunity for agitation by the unions for higher salaries for their workers and that to me is probably what I think is more troubling," Fontaine said.

"It is always a shock to the system when you raise something drastically by 52 per cent. If you could wait 20 years without an increase, couldn't that have been phased in over a three-, four-, five-year period?"