The Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) has re­ject­ed as “pure PNM pro­pa­gan­da” a so­cial me­dia post claim­ing Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John told PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment could not af­ford the promised 10 per cent salary in­crease.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, the PSA called the wide­ly shared claim “fab­ri­cat­ed”, in­sist­ing the UNC re­mains com­mit­ted to ho­n­our­ing its promise to set­tle out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions for the 2014–2019 pe­ri­od at no less than ten per cent.

The post in ques­tion first ap­peared on the pop­u­lar Face­book page and al­leged that union lead­ers were “fu­ri­ous” over the min­is­ter’s sup­posed com­ments. It al­so ac­cused Thomas of be­tray­al, claim­ing she had “re­alised that the thir­ty pieces of sil­ver wasn’t worth it”.

The PSA then urged the pub­lic not to be mis­led and to re­ly on­ly on its of­fi­cial plat­forms for ac­cu­rate up­dates, in­clud­ing its Face­book, In­sta­gram and web­site on the post.