Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA) pres­i­dent Leti­tia Cox says she was left dis­ap­point­ed by the 2027 Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Cox said there was no men­tion of nurs­es de­spite pre­vi­ous promis­es by the Gov­ern­ment that nurs­es would be tak­en care of. She said the si­lence on nurs­es’ ar­rears and the pro­posed 10 per cent wage in­crease was par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­ap­point­ing.

In June, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, while pi­lot­ing the mo­tion for the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to adopt the re­port of the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee, as­sured that pro­vi­sions for out­stand­ing wage set­tle­ments would be in­clud­ed in the 2027 Bud­get once on­go­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions and cal­cu­la­tions were com­plet­ed.

At the time, he said, “I want to tell nurs­es, teach­ers and who­ev­er else that are cur­rent­ly at the bar­gain­ing ta­ble or are await­ing fi­nal­i­sa­tion that re­lief is com­ing,” adding that “the doc­u­men­ta­tions are be­ing pro­vid­ed now, and in fis­cal 2027 the rel­e­vant ap­pro­pri­a­tions will be made.”

But yes­ter­day, Cox was un­hap­py: “I must say we were op­ti­mistic. We were hop­ing that the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Fi­nance would have made good on the promise he made dur­ing the Mid-year Bud­get Re­view. He ac­tu­al­ly called nurs­es’ names, say­ing that we would be ad­dressed and would re­ceive the in­crease. We ex­pect­ed him to speak to that, and here it is: I came per­son­al­ly to sit in the gallery to hear that good news, and I was dis­ap­point­ed.”

Cox said the TTNNA will take part in the march against Gov­ern­ment on Oc­to­ber 23. She en­cour­aged mem­bers not to lose faith, as­sur­ing them that the as­so­ci­a­tion would con­tin­ue sup­port­ing their calls for wage in­creas­es.

“I know you are dis­cour­aged. I know you are dis­heart­ened, but we are here for you and we want you to come out with us on the 23rd of Oc­to­ber. We want you to know we are ready for the fight and we are go­ing to de­fend you with all that we have.”

Her mes­sage to the Gov­ern­ment was that it need­ed to “take care of your es­sen­tial work­ers.” She added that a promise had been made and not kept.

Dur­ing his pre­sen­ta­tion, Tan­coo an­nounced that oth­er unions had ben­e­fit­ed from al­lo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW), which was al­lo­cat­ed $510 mil­lion; the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion, which was giv­en $44.9 mil­lion in ar­rears, along with the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, which re­ceived $45.4 mil­lion in ar­rears as well. The De­fence Force was al­lo­cat­ed $281.8 mil­lion for ar­rears owed.

Mean­while, Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get de­scribed the Bud­get as “ex­cel­lent.” The OW­TU is one of the unions that formed part of the Coali­tion of In­ter­ests that sup­port­ed the Gov­ern­ment ahead of last year’s elec­tion. An­oth­er union in the coali­tion was the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA).

While no spe­cif­ic al­lo­ca­tion was made in the Bud­get, Tan­coo said the Gov­ern­ment, through the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer, was of­fer­ing a set­tle­ment of 40 per cent cash for PSA work­ers.

PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas re­ject­ed that of­fer and, when asked about it be­fore the Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, said she was not chang­ing her po­si­tion but want­ed to hear di­rect­ly from Tan­coo’s pre­sen­ta­tion that a par­tial cash set­tle­ment was be­ing of­fered be­fore com­ment­ing.

At­tempts to ob­tain a com­ment from her af­ter the pre­sen­ta­tion were un­suc­cess­ful.