Gail Alexan­der

No trap­ping Im­bert.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert yes­ter­day re­fused to an­swer an Op­po­si­tion query in the Sen­ate on the ra­tio­nale for the wage ne­go­ti­a­tion of­fer to pub­lic ser­vants of two per cent for an eight-year pe­ri­od.

At Fri­day’s Sen­ate ses­sion, UNC sen­a­tor Wade Mark had called on Im­bert to an­swer an ur­gent ques­tion on the is­sue.

Mark said that giv­en the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer’s (CPO) of­fer of two per cent for an eight- year pe­ri­od in wage ne­go­ti­a­tion with pub­lic ser­vants, whether Im­bert could in­di­cate the Gov­ern­ment’s ra­tio­nale for such an of­fer.

Im­bert said, “Sen­a­tor Mark couldn’t be se­ri­ous. I find it sur­pris­ing that he’ll ask some­one as ex­pe­ri­enced as I am, a ques­tion like that; think­ing that I will fall in­to er­ror.”

“Ne­go­ti­a­tions for col­lec­tive agree­ments are not con­duct­ed in pub­lic and I’ll not fall in­to the trap of mak­ing an in­ju­di­cious state­ment that could be used against the Gov­ern­ment in court,” Im­bert added.

Mark asked if Gov­ern­ment would ad­dress this “provoca­tive of­fer” in com­ing pe­ri­ods.

Im­bert replied, “I re­peat my pre­vi­ous an­swer.”

Gov­ern­ment Sen­ate Leader Paula Gopee-Scoon al­so said Mark was out of touch with re­al­i­ty af­ter he asked when the Beetham Sew­er Pipeline Project be com­plet­ed.

“The Beetham Sew­er Pipeline Project in­clu­sive of road restora­tion was com­plet­ed April 8, 2022,” she said deny­ing oth­er chal­lenges emerged af­ter­wards.

On Mark’s query on sub-con­trac­tors for de­vel­op­ment of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal Cen­tral Block Project, Gopee-Scoon said in­for­ma­tion avail­able to UDe­COTT on the sub-con­trac­tors was de­rived from in­for­ma­tion the con­trac­tor–SCG (Caribbean) Group Lim­it­ed.

CLICK FOR MORE NEWS