Richard Lord

Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day slammed the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion (SRC), say­ing it was dis­re­spect­ful and out of step in its 98th Re­port for salaries and oth­er ben­e­fits for MPs.The re­port was pre­sent­ed for de­bate in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives by leader of gov­ern­ment busi­ness Dr Roodal Mooni­lal.

It con­tained salary in­creas­es and oth­er ben­e­fits for some 900 top of­fi­cials in the coun­try, in­clud­ing the pres­i­dent, prime min­is­ter, chief jus­tice and op­po­si­tion Leader. The SRC rec­om­mend­ed a 24 per cent hike in month­ly salary for many of those of­fi­cials.

But Row­ley was not im­pressed by the SRC re­port, say­ing it was done in a "poor" and "il­le­gal" man­ner. Ad­mit­ting to leg­is­la­tors he had a prob­lem with the doc­u­ment, Row­ley said it ap­peared the SRC felt the work of MPs had di­min­ished, or that the coun­try can­not af­ford to pay MPs prop­er salaries.He said: "The deputy chair­man of the SRC earns more than a MP. That's mad­ness, doesn't make any sense.

"I think there is a cer­tain amount of malev­o­lence that comes from the com­mis­sion to mem­bers of this House. And if the rest of you want to ac­cept it that is a mat­ter for you. I re­ject it."Row­ley said he worked very hard "for what­ev­er is giv­en to me as my emol­u­ment and I haven't been com­plain­ing, but I will com­plain now when I see I am be­ing dis­re­spect­ed by a com­mis­sion that takes the po­si­tion that my time and ef­fort are worth noth­ing."

Not­ing that the SRC was es­tab­lished in 1976 to re­view the salaries and oth­er con­di­tions of of­fi­cials un­der its purview, Row­ley said this was done to pre­vent par­lia­men­tar­i­ans from set­ting their own terms and con­di­tions of em­ploy­ment.

Row­ley said an­oth­er re­port, which was re­quest­ed by Cab­i­net from the House Com­mit­tee, was more in keep­ing with the re­quire­ments of par­lia­men­tar­i­ans but was re­ject­ed by the Cab­i­net. He said the Cab­i­net had failed the House Com­mit­tee, which was es­tab­lished on Sep­tem­ber 9, 2013, and chaired by Hous­ing and Ur­ban de­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal. Oth­er mem­bers of the com­mit­tee were Anil Roberts, Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin, Nela Khan, Colm Im­bert and Nile­ung Hy­po­lite.

Row­ley said he ex­pect­ed the SRC would have con­sid­ered facts and not fic­tion in mak­ing its re­port. The Diego Mar­tin West MP said the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led Cab­i­net failed to prop­er­ly as­sess the House Com­mit­tee re­port, which was pre­pared fol­low­ing the SRC re­port.He was al­so crit­i­cal of the com­mis­sion for say­ing in its fifth con­sec­u­tive re­port that it was not able to treat with MPs be­cause of the need for an as­sess­ment of work­load and con­tri­bu­tions.

Row­ley asked how could the com­mis­sion find re­sources to vi­o­late ba­sic in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions prac­tice, adding the on­ly thing they did of sig­nif­i­cance to MPs was to take away their en­ti­tle­ment to du­ty/tax ex­emp­tions on cars they buy for their of­fi­cial use. Row­ley said this was not ne­go­ti­at­ed and must be re­ject­ed out­right as it was wrong in prin­ci­ple."Where did the SRC get the au­thor­i­ty from to want to change a Cab­i­net de­ci­sion?" Row­ley asked.

"That should have been ig­nored out of hand. There is a mind­set that par­lia­men­tar­i­ans aren't worth any­thing and they could be treat­ed in the most off-hand man­ner."He said the on­ly peo­ple on the pub­lic pay­roll over whom the pub­lic has any con­trol are MPs."If you don't like what they are do­ing, then you vote them out of of­fice next time. We are the on­ly peo­ple who the mem­bers of the pub­lic have any con­trol over, not per­ma­nent sec­re­taries, not di­rec­tors, not man­ages in state en­ter­pris­es," Row­ley said.

He in­sist­ed the work of the par­lia­men­tar­i­ans was not a part time job."I know that there are those out­side who say we are ar­gu­ing for a pay in­crease. That's not the ar­gu­ment I am mak­ing, I am mak­ing an ar­gu­ment for fair treat­ment and more im­por­tant­ly, to en­sure that col­leagues on both sides of the House are avail­able to the House."

No­body hap­py with re­port

Ch­agua­nas West MP Jack Warn­er al­so asked act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Er­rol Mc Leod how the salary of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice could be less than that of the pres­i­dent of Ni­herst, as was rec­om­mend­ed by the SRC. The SRC is rec­om­mend­ing that the CoP be paid $31,050 a month, while it rec­om­mend­ed a salary of $32,050 for the Ni­herst pres­i­dent.Mooni­lal said the in­crease will be retroac­tive to Oc­to­ber 2011. He said the SRC was ex­pect­ed to be­gin a new re­view of salaries and oth­er ben­e­fits for the of­fi­cials in 2015.