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Friday, July 11, 2025

Economists disagree with two per cent offer to public servants

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1144 days ago
20220523
Economist Dr Vaalmikki Arjoon

Economist Dr Vaalmikki Arjoon

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Chester Sam­bra­no

Econ­o­mist Dr Vaalmik­ki Ar­joon has ex­pressed the view that the wage in­crease of­fer put on the ta­ble by the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers is sim­ply not enough.

“The pro­posed two per cent hike in salaries is mi­nus­cule and quite frankly un­fair, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the in­crease in prices and the over­all cost of liv­ing since the last time salaries in­creased in 2013,” Dr Ar­joon, a fi­nance lec­tur­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, said yes­ter­day.

He ex­plained that cur­rent­ly, prices for all items con­sumed dai­ly are the high­est they have ever been for a myr­i­ad of rea­sons.

He said, “Glob­al sup­ply chain con­straints are caus­ing an in­crease in the prices of goods we im­port for re­sale lo­cal­ly and raw ma­te­ri­als for the man­u­fac­tur­ing process, the es­ca­lat­ed cost of ship­ping and, of course, these have all been com­pound­ed by the hike in en­er­gy prices, and more re­cent­ly, the high­er price for fu­el at the pump which not on­ly ex­ac­er­bates the cost of liv­ing but al­so the cost of do­ing busi­ness, which will again be passed on to con­sumers as high­er prices.”

Ar­joon said the two per cent in­crease for many house­holds is not even go­ing to be ad­e­quate to cov­er the added cost of fu­el they are now in­cur­ring, es­pe­cial­ly those who dri­ve from Cen­tral, South and East Trinidad dai­ly for work in Port-of-Spain.

“Fur­ther­more, this amount or any oth­er in­crease in salaries will be vir­tu­al­ly tak­en away in­di­rect­ly when the prop­er­ty tax is levied, yet an­oth­er mea­sure that will in­crease the cost of liv­ing,” he added.

Econ­o­mist Dr In­dera Sage­wan shared sim­i­lar views.

“A two per cent ob­vi­ous­ly can in no way com­pen­sate over the last eight years for that loss in pur­chas­ing pow­er, so it is re­al­ly too low.”

On the oth­er hand, she ac­knowl­edged, “giv­en where the econ­o­my in Trinidad and To­ba­go is, a wage in­crease is a chal­leng­ing is­sue to put on the ta­ble.”

Sage­wan al­so added that the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty is­sue can­not be ig­nored, as it is re­lat­ed to the pub­lic sec­tor.

“In my view, no con­ver­sa­tion about wage in­crease should be hap­pen­ing with­out the ad­don of the is­sue of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty,” Sage­wan said.

She said this is to en­sure that wage in­creas­es are tagged on to greater ef­fi­cien­cy.

And while the con­ver­sa­tion is about wage ne­go­ti­a­tions, Dr Sage­wan said the re­al im­per­a­tive this coun­try faces “is an ab­sence of growth.”

“I am talk­ing about what is the Gov­ern­ment do­ing and what has it been do­ing for the last, I would say, some odd 20 to 25 years to grow the econ­o­my of Trinidad and To­ba­go?”

She said be­cause of this, the Gov­ern­ment now finds it­self “caught be­tween a rock and a hard place” where the wage de­mand is a le­git­i­mate­ly owed one, which is nec­es­sary giv­en the cost of liv­ing but the abil­i­ty to af­ford it in a sus­tained man­ner is not there.

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