Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment sup­port­ers yes­ter­day chas­tised the Prime Min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion to agree to the Salary Re­view Com­mis­sion’s rec­om­men­da­tion of a pay hike for him­self and oth­er top pub­lic of­fi­cials. They ex­pressed the view even as they gath­ered out­side Bal­isi­er House for the screen­ing of more po­ten­tial can­di­dates for the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

The crit­i­cism came days af­ter Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get ac­cused PNM sup­port­ers of hypocrisy for fail­ing to speak out against a hefty pay in­crease rec­om­mend­ed by the SRC in its 120th re­port.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia out­side the Bal­isi­er House, sup­port­ers ques­tioned why pub­lic ser­vants are be­ing of­fered a four per cent in­crease while Row­ley and oth­ers have agreed to a rec­om­men­da­tion of as much as 47 per cent.

“Why nor­mal civil­ians should get four per cent and they should get a huge in­crease. That is not fair. It is not,” Keyze­ca Munroe said.

Health work­er Stephon Lynch echoed the sen­ti­ment, say­ing “four per cent is not enough.”

“I worked through the whole of COVID-19. Four per cent is not enough. I could not stay home for COVID as a health work­er. Four per cent is not enough. I sure about that.”

Like Lynch, An­tonette Arthur said the dis­par­i­ty in the in­creas­es be­tween pub­lic ser­vants and the top of­fi­cials was un­ac­cept­able. She said the dif­fer­ence be­tween the pro­posed in­crease and the cur­rent wages could be used to as­sist less for­tu­nate chil­dren who are not able to ac­cess school sup­plies, rather than pay­ing high­er salaries to a se­lect­ed few top pub­lic of­fi­cials.

Her friend Gwynette Noel chimed in, say­ing the in­crease was “very bad.”

“They have no right to raise their pay again. They done get­ting enough. Poor peo­ple done get­ting four per cent when they can’t even buy gro­ceries when the month come,” Noel said.

How­ev­er, for­mer cam­paign man­ag­er for out­go­ing MP Fitzger­ald Hinds, Clay Thomas, not­ed that the rec­om­men­da­tion for an in­crease in salaries, while ac­cept­ed by Cab­i­net, is yet to be im­ple­ment­ed, which is some­thing that needs to be high­light­ed.

“I have no is­sue with re­spect to the pro­pos­als, of course the im­ple­men­ta­tion is an­oth­er is­sue,” he said, adding that the salaries of the PM and oth­er top state of­fi­cials do not com­men­su­rate with the work that they do, and they de­serve to be com­pen­sat­ed ad­e­quate­ly.

An­oth­er sup­port­er, Kerzia Ali-Charles, al­so said she saw no prob­lem with the in­crease.

The sup­port­ers al­so com­ment­ed on Hinds step­ping away from elec­toral pol­i­tics and gave their thoughts on econ­o­mist Dr In­di­ra Sage­wan’s sug­ges­tion that Hinds should al­so have stepped down as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Sage­wan ques­tioned why Hinds re­mained as a min­is­ter when he had an­nounced he would no longer ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pate in elec­toral pol­i­tics.

“If he’s not suit­able to be a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, how come we still have him as a Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty? Es­pe­cial­ly in con­text where crime is con­tin­u­ing to wors­en in this coun­try. I think that is the more im­por­tant ques­tion. Is he the best per­son for this job? Be­cause there are a lot of peo­ple clam­our­ing to get in­to pol­i­tics. To me, in this mo­ment, this coun­try needs to know: Are you the ap­pro­pri­ate Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty?” Sage­wan said.

Yes­ter­day, all of the sup­port­ers, ex­cept for Thomas and Ali-Charles, agreed Hinds should step down as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter as well, say­ing they be­lieve he has done noth­ing to ad­dress crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty.

Both Arthur and Munroe said they were sup­port­ers of Ka­reem Mar­celle, who was one of the can­di­dates screened yes­ter­day, and not the PNM. Munroe went fur­ther to say that if Mar­celle were to switch po­lit­i­cal al­le­giances, she would as well.