Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke said he will be meet­ing with the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) lat­er this month to dis­cuss a pro­pos­al for the State to de­posit $15,000 in the ac­count of every sin­gle pub­lic ser­vant as part pay­ment of out­stand­ing ar­rears.

At a press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Duke said, “We have been con­tact­ed by the CPO’s of­fice, and in a mad rush to avoid pay­ing that mon­ey, she has now giv­en us dates out­side of De­cem­ber 15.”

The dates, he in­di­cat­ed, are De­cem­ber 28, and Jan­u­ary 8, 2019, to re­sume ne­go­ti­a­tions.

“We are go­ing to put $15,000 tax-free on the ta­ble. If the Prime Min­is­ter want to fi­nance a lit­tle ho­tel, a lit­tle guest house (San­dals) for eight bil­lion dol­lars…can’t he pay?” he asked.

Ear­li­er this year, Duke called for 15,000 one-off pay­ment to some 80,000 pub­lic ser­vants by Au­gust as a sign of good­will.

“The av­er­age back-pay is over $20,000 for a three-year pe­ri­od. Now we are say­ing, based on the in­fla­tion­ary rate, we are say­ing at the min­i­mum, give work­ers $15,000 as an ex-gra­tia pay­ment to­wards their ar­rears owed to them from 2010 right up to 2018.”

He al­so urged Gov­ern­ment to re­turn to the Na­tion­al Tri­par­tite Ad­vi­so­ry Coun­cil (NTAC) for dis­cus­sions. —Rishard Khan