Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo has an­nounced a 10 per cent pay in­crease for pub­lic ser­vants, as the Gov­ern­ment moves to set­tle long-out­stand­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions.

"For far too long, our pub­lic of­fi­cers, the back­bone of our na­tion’s work­force, have been made to car­ry the weight of the for­mer Gov­ern­ment’s ne­glect and in­dif­fer­ence," Tan­coo said. "This Gov­ern­ment is tak­ing this bold and his­toric step to re­store jus­tice, dig­ni­ty and re­spect to the hard-work­ing men and women of the pub­lic ser­vice."

He said the re­vised of­fer cov­ers the pe­ri­ods 2014–2016 and 2017–2019. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­struct­ed the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer to make the new pro­pos­al to the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion.

"The Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter has in­struct­ed me to ad­vise the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer to sub­mit a re­vised of­fer of 10 per cent."

Tan­coo al­so con­firmed that col­lec­tive agree­ments signed in April 2025 for the Teach­ing Ser­vice, De­fence Force, and the Port of Spain and San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tions will be rat­i­fied. The agree­ments will cost $214 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly, with $730 mil­lion in ar­rears due by De­cem­ber 2025.

He said a Re­quest for Pro­pos­al will be is­sued to al­low pub­lic sec­tor re­tirees and their fam­i­lies to re­main on the UNIMED Group Health Plan, ad­dress­ing a gap in cov­er­age that cur­rent­ly ex­cludes re­tirees.

Tan­coo added that the Job Eval­u­a­tion Ex­er­cise for the Civ­il Ser­vice should be com­plet­ed with­in six to eight months. Once fi­nalised, about 40 per cent of fixed-term stan­dard­ised con­tracts will be­come per­ma­nent and pen­sion­able, and an­oth­er 20 to 23 per cent of non-stan­dard con­tracts will be ab­sorbed in­to the new grade struc­ture.

The ex­er­cise will re­duce fixed-term con­tract em­ploy­ment by as much as 63 per cent, he said, bring­ing more con­tract of­fi­cers un­der the pub­lic ser­vice sys­tem