June 18 will be the mid-year bud­get de­bate, two days af­ter the Fi­nance Com­mit­tee meets to dis­cuss the mid-year re­view.

This was an­nounced by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day at the post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the re­view will as­sist the Gov­ern­ment in man­ag­ing the coun­try up to the end of the fis­cal year and be­fore the 2026 bud­get, some­time in Sep­tem­ber.

With that in mind, the Prime Min­is­ter was asked about ad­dress­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), that was promised a start­ing point of no less than ten per cent.

Asked when ne­go­ti­a­tions with the PSA will be­gin, she said “as soon as we can,” adding that she was not go­ing to com­mit her­self to giv­ing a date as this is “a high pri­or­i­ty mat­ter.”

Ear­li­er this month, PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas said the union is giv­ing the Gov­ern­ment time to set­tle be­fore rais­ing the mat­ter of wage ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Asked then if the union was be­ing le­nient as Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste was her pre­de­ces­sor, Thomas said no.

“The labour move­ment wait­ed ten years un­der the PNM. Work­ers suf­fered for ten years un­der the PNM, so be­ing le­nient with a UNC Gov­ern­ment that has said to us that they will start ne­go­ti­a­tions with no less than ten per cent. That’s not be­ing le­nient with a Gov­ern­ment that has on­ly tak­en of­fice one week. That’s be­ing rea­son­able,” she said then.

Thomas added that the Cab­i­net should be giv­en time to “get in­to their busi­ness.” She stressed she will not give the Gov­ern­ment a time frame to make good on its promise.

On Mon­day, Thomas said the Gov­ern­ment made good on oth­er promis­es and she was not wor­ried about it keep­ing its com­mit­ment to ne­go­ti­ate for an in­crease in salaries.

“While we have not recom­menced ne­go­ti­a­tions at this point, that is not the on­ly com­mit­ment giv­en by the gov­ern­ment and we have seen some of the things bear­ing fruit and I an­tic­i­pate with­in a short time we will get an in­vi­ta­tion and of­fer from the state to re­turn to the ne­go­ti­at­ing ta­ble.”

—Jensen La Vende