Teach­ers have ac­cept­ed the gov­ern­ment’s lat­est wage of­fer end­ing in­dus­tri­al ac­tion that had led to protest ac­tion last week and a re­sump­tion of class­es on Mon­day.

In ad­di­tion, doc­tors have al­so vot­ed to ac­cept the of­fer made by the gov­ern­ment.

Last week, Fi­nance and the Pub­lic Ser­vice Min­is­ter, Dr Nigel Clarke an­nounced that J$4.3 bil­lion (One Ja­maica dol­lar=US$0.008 cents) had been al­lo­cat­ed in the bud­get for this fis­cal year to set­tle wage agree­ments with some of the ma­jor pub­lic sec­tor groups, which ends on March 31.

Clarke said the An­drew Holnes gov­ern­ment has al­lo­cat­ed J$10.2 bil­lion for rank-and-file po­lice of­fi­cers, with an ad­di­tion­al one bil­lion for Dis­trict Con­sta­bles and J$600 mil­lion for mem­bers of the Po­lice Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion, to­talling J$11.8 bil­lion.

The to­tal amount al­lo­cat­ed for ju­nior doc­tors is J$6.4 bil­lion.

“We want the doc­tors to re­ceive the amounts in March 2023. We want to be in a po­si­tion for these amounts to leave the Con­sol­i­dat­ed Fund in March 2023. These amounts alone to­tal J$30 bil­lion, and this size of pay­ment can­not be ac­com­mo­dat­ed in the up­com­ing fis­cal year,” Clarke said.

The to­tal sum for teach­ers is ap­prox­i­mate­ly J$12 bil­lion.

On Sun­day, the teach­ers as­so­ci­at­ed with the Ja­maica Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (JTA) vot­ed to ac­cept the wage of­fer af­ter they had ini­tial­ly re­jct­ed the wage of­fer un­der the gov­ern­ment’s pub­lic sec­tor com­pen­sa­tion re­view pro­gramme.

Pres­i­dent of the Ja­maica Med­ical Doc­tors’ As­so­ci­a­tion (JM­DA), Dr Min­di Fitz-Hen­ley, said 95 per cent of those present on Sun­day vot­ed dur­ing a spe­cial meet­ing of the JM­DA elect­ed to ac­cept the of­fer.

“The JM­DA met with its mem­ber­ship this evening, and the out­come of the vote is that 95 per cent of per­sons vot­ed to ac­cept the new com­pen­sa­tion pack­age from the Min­istry of Fi­nance,” Fitz-Hen­ley said, adding that the wage of­fer will pro­tect and al­low fu­ture gen­er­a­tions of doc­tors to prop­er­ly be hired in posts.

“It is im­por­tant to note that with this of­fer, we get all of our doc­tors cur­rent­ly em­ployed in a con­tract in­to a post and we al­so pro­tect the fu­ture gen­er­a­tion of doc­tors to come by, en­sur­ing that they al­so have to be hired in­to a post,” she added.

On Fri­day, March 10, Min­istry of the Fi­nance and the Pub­lic Ser­vice sent a new wage of­fer to mem­bers of the Ja­maica Con­stab­u­lary Force, hours af­ter the lead­er­ship of the groups rep­re­sent­ing the cops de­nied that they had re­ject­ed a pro­posed pay pack­age from the Gov­ern­ment.