Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas is again ac­cus­ing the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) of stalling the “10 per cent” wage ne­go­ti­a­tions, and she is now ask­ing if he has been giv­en a man­date to block pub­lic ser­vants from get­ting their back­pay by Christ­mas.

In a video post­ed to so­cial me­dia last evening ti­tled, “Who is stand­ing in the way of your back­pay be­fore Christ­mas? The Chief Per­son­nel Ob­struc­tion­ist”, Thomas re­vealed she has been in­vit­ed to meet with the CPO on No­vem­ber 21.

How­ev­er, she in­formed her mem­bers that the meet­ing is not to com­mence ne­go­ti­a­tions.

“It was an in­vi­ta­tion to a pre­sen­ta­tion on the state of the econ­o­my. Need­less to say, com­rades, you are aware, I am aware of the state of the econ­o­my, and I don’t un­der­stand why the CPO’s of­fice is be­hav­ing as though we are now com­menc­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions,” Thomas lament­ed.

The PSA pres­i­dent said in her view, ne­go­ti­a­tions be­gan in April 2022 and a state of the econ­o­my was pre­sent­ed then. Now, she said the PSA wants to fo­cus on the 10 per cent of­fer, which the Fi­nance Min­is­ter di­rect­ed CPO Com­man­der Dr Daryl Din­di­al to put on the bar­gain­ing ta­ble.

She urged Din­di­al to stop de­lay­ing the process, not­ing he al­ready re­ceived his 47 per cent salary in­crease un­der the for­mer gov­ern­ment’s ac­cep­tance of the Salary Re­view Com­mis­sion’s rec­om­men­da­tions.

“What is the is­sue? What is the prob­lem that all of you have with en­sur­ing that pub­lic of­fi­cers are well tak­en care of? You want to take care of your­selves, but for­get about pub­lic of­fi­cers. The very same pub­lic of­fi­cers that you re­ly on, you are de­lay­ing.

“For what rea­son? I don’t know. Maybe you have some man­dates that work­ers are not aware of. Maybe your man­date is not to let pub­lic of­fi­cers get the mon­ey by Christ­mas.”

Thomas urged the CPO to for­get about the pre­sen­ta­tion and com­mence the ne­go­ti­a­tions at 10 per cent and “noth­ing else.”

Last week, Din­di­al ex­plained to Guardian Me­dia that the pre­sen­ta­tion of a “Brief”, which is the sta­tus of the econ­o­my pre­pared by the Fi­nance Min­istry, is the first step in the ne­go­ti­at­ing process.