Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

The Of­fice of the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) is mov­ing to fi­nalise the process for the pay­ment of salary in­creas­es to mem­bers of the Teach­ing Ser­vice, af­ter com­plet­ing a re­quest for ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion from Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo by the end of the month.

CPO Dr Daryl Din­di­al con­firmed the sta­tus of the process in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.
Dr Din­di­al said his of­fice has been in­struct­ed to sub­mit fur­ther doc­u­men­ta­tion to the Min­istry of Fi­nance be­fore the re­vised salaries can be im­ple­ment­ed.

“The CPO has been in­struct­ed to pro­vide ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion, and we are work­ing on pro­vid­ing the in­for­ma­tion to the min­is­ter by no lat­er than the end of the month,” he said.

Din­di­al said the Fi­nance Min­is­ter had pre­vi­ous­ly in­di­cat­ed Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to ho­n­our­ing agree­ments signed by unions pri­or to last year’s gen­er­al elec­tion.

How­ev­er, pressed for fur­ther de­tails about the in­for­ma­tion re­quest­ed, Din­di­al re­mained tight-lipped. He ex­plained that the in­for­ma­tion be­ing com­piled in­cludes de­tails on agree­ments signed by four oth­er ne­go­ti­at­ing bod­ies pri­or to the gen­er­al elec­tion, a fac­tor that must be con­sid­ered as part of the wider pub­lic ser­vice wage frame­work.

“The agree­ments for Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA), Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF), Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers’ Union and Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Union were all signed be­fore the elec­tion,” he said.

De­spite the as­sur­ance that the process is be­ing fi­nalised, TTUTA has ex­pressed dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the de­lay.

TTUTA pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe said there was a rea­son­able ex­pec­ta­tion that the mat­ter would have ad­vanced fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with the CPO on De­cem­ber 10, 2025, and de­scribed the re­quest for ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion at this stage as “dis­ap­point­ing.”

He pre­vi­ous­ly point­ed out that TTUTA signed an agree­ment with the State in April 2025, af­ter which a promise was made that new salaries would be paid by Ju­ly 2025.

Ashe added that TTUTA’s coun­cil will meet to de­ter­mine the way for­ward, even as the union moves ahead with its planned peace­ful ral­ly to press for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the agreed salary in­creas­es.