“Do not touch the jobs or the salaries of pub­lic ser­vants.”

This warn­ing came from the Pres­i­dent of the Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion Wat­son Duke, who on Mon­day said that the PSA will fight for every pub­lic ser­vant whose job may be at risk. Duke said the PSA is go­ing even fur­ther in de­mand­ing an in­crease for pub­lic ser­vants.

And he has al­so called for all pub­lic ser­vants to take a “COVID day off.”

Dur­ing a news con­fer­ence on Mon­day, the PSA pres­i­dent took aim at the gov­ern­ment’s spend­ing pat­terns which he said in­di­cat­ed that the gov­ern­ment can do bet­ter.

“We want Row­ley to know, and Im­bert to know, the fight is on, you make joke and cut staff, or cut salaries but notwith­stand­ing that ar­gu­ment we look­ing for an in­crease.

“Don’t tell us you can’t af­ford it. We have looked at these vul­gar peo­ple in Par­lia­ment en­gage in all kind of vul­gar ac­tiv­i­ties - so­ca on the seas, hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars were spent on paint­ings, three mil­lion vul­gar projects. Trump six­ty mil­lion dol­lar phone call.”

Duke’s is­sue came af­ter Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert paint­ed a grim eco­nom­ic out­look for the coun­try, say­ing that the gov­ern­ment was forced to bor­row mon­ey to pay pub­lic ser­vants.

The Min­is­ter al­so warned that gov­ern­ment could not af­ford any sig­nif­i­cant wage in­creas­es.

But yes­ter­day, the PSA Pres­i­dent said the coun­try will have no choice but to re­turn to the polls if pub­lic ser­vants’ jobs or salaries are touched.

“We the peo­ple will call for an ear­ly elec­tion, touch them, all he has to do is touch them. Touch the pub­lic ser­vants, you touch them and I guar­an­tee we will force an ear­ly elec­tion,“ Duke said.

But Duke al­so urged pub­lic ser­vants to let the Min­is­ter and gov­ern­ment know they are tak­ing the com­ments se­ri­ous­ly and to show their strength by tak­ing a COVID day off on March 2.

Mean­while, Duke, who is al­so the po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) said while the par­ty is will­ing to meet with the Prime Min­is­ter on the way for­ward con­cern­ing the cur­rent THA dead­lock, he said Dr Kei­th Row­ley is wast­ing his time and the par­lia­ment’s time.

He ex­plained that the mat­ter can­not be ad­dressed by in­creas­ing the num­ber of elec­toral seats. Duke said it’s an is­sue that should be solved by To­bag­o­ni­ans.

“The mat­ter must be solved among us and we are will­ing to have a con­ver­sa­tion with the oth­er six PNM As­sem­bly­men. But do not try to bul­ly us with your par­lia­men­tary gim­micks. We are not tak­ing you on with this stu­pid 15 seats, it il­le­gal and we will chal­lenge it when it be­comes law.”