Gail Alexan­der

Top of­fice hold­ers from the Pres­i­dent, Prime Min­is­ter, Op­po­si­tion Leader and Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and se­nior se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials are in for an im­mi­nent salary freeze un­der the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion's lat­est rec­om­men­da­tions.

The halt on salary hikes–pos­si­bly for three years– comes as a re­sult of the eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment, ac­cord­ing to the SRC. How­ev­er, some "nom­i­nal" in­creas­es for trans­porta­tion, hous­ing, sub­sis­tence, etc, have been rec­om­mend­ed by the SRC for of­fice hold­ers. The rec­om­men­da­tions are con­tained in the SRC's 89th re­port which was laid in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day. The re­port out­lined a gen­er­al re­view of the salaries and oth­er terms and con­di­tions of ser­vice of of­fices with­in the purview of the SRC. Gov­ern­ment in­tends to de­bate the re­port in Par­lia­ment next week Tues­day or Wednes­day and adopt the re­port im­me­di­ate­ly, Gov­ern­ment (House) Leader Colm Im­bert said yes­ter­day.

Once adopt­ed, the SRC's rec­om­men­da­tions would come in­to ef­fect, he con­firmed. In­for­ma­tion Min­is­ter Neil Parsan­lal, speak­ing about the re­port in Par­lia­ment, said: "The SRC has pro­posed and Cab­i­net has ac­cept­ed that there will be no salary in­creas­es for hold­ers of of­fice with­in the purview of the SRC, in­clud­ing mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives at this time." Parsan­lal added, "The SRC has rec­om­mend­ed in­stead that con­sid­er­a­tion be giv­en to a re­view of these re­mu­ner­a­tion arrange­ments be­fore the usu­al three-year in­ter­val should there be a re­ver­sal of the cur­rent down­ward trend in the eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment. The In­for­ma­tion Min­is­ter said, "Notwith­stand­ing its rec­om­men­da­tions with re­gard to salary in­creas­es, the SRC con­sid­ered it ap­pro­pri­ate to re­view the ben­e­fits cur­rent­ly payable to of­fice hold­ers with­in their purview that are based on ac­tu­al costs eg–rans­porta­tion, hous­ing , sub­sis­tence–and have rec­om­mend­ed some nom­i­nal in­creas­es in those ar­eas."

The SRC in­di­cat­ed some ex­cep­tions to its rec­om­men­da­tions with re­spect to salaries on­ly for cer­tain of­fices in the ju­di­cial/le­gal sys­tem. While the SRC rec­om­mend­ed that salaries for the oth­er of­fices in the pro­tec­tive ser­vices group be main­tained, the SRC rec­om­mend­ed re­vised salaries/al­lowances for the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and Deputy Com­mis­sion­er based on their new du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties aris­ing from leg­isla­tive changes. The SRC, chaired by Ed­ward Col­lier, has 854 per­sons un­der its purview. The last gen­er­al re­view–and salary in­crease–giv­en by SRC was in 2005. Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards in Jan­u­ary 2008 ap­proved SRC's gen­er­al re­view of salaries and con­di­tions of ser­vice. This per­tains to cur­rent mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly of­fi­cials and oth­er top of­fice hold­ers in­clud­ing the Pres­i­dent, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers , top pub­lic ser­vice man­agers, se­nior diplo­mat­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tives and state board chair­men.

PRESENT SALARIES

Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning–$48,000

Op­po­si­tion Leader Bas­deo Pan­day–$23,800.

Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards–$49,500

Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie–$40,500.

Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters–$33,000 (Cab­i­net), $27,300 (non-Cab­i­net)

Op­po­si­tion MPs–$14,00.

Op­po­si­tion, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors–$10,500.

THA CHief Sec­re­tary–$27,300.

May­or (chair­man of re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion)–$16,800 (POS) $14,700 (San Fer­nan­do), $13,700 (Ch­agua­nas), $12,600 (Ari­ma), $12,600 (Pt Fortin).

Coun­cil­lor–$7,000