Local News

Payment of August salaries begins for government workers

St. George’s, September 4, 2012 – Some of the thousands of Grenadian government workers Tuesday received their August salaries, which were due since last week.

All workers are expected to receive their salaries by Wednesday.

Finance Minister Nazim Burke has not spoken publicly on the issue, and neither he nor any official of his ministry has given any explanation for the late payment of salaries.

Two written statements from the finance ministry have apologized for the payment delay in the name of the “Government of Grenada’’.

The second of the two statements said, “Government regrets the delay but wishes to assure all public workers that they will be paid by Wednesday, September 05, 2012.’’

Prime Minister Tillman Thomas, in an interview with reporters Monday, apologized to public officers for the late salaries and said the ministry of finance should have been more “forthcoming” about the payment problem.

There are reports that the prime minister and his cabinet colleagues were unaware – like the rest of the public service – that salaries would not be paid on the scheduled date last week.

Wages and salaries for Grenada’s more than 5,000 public officers amount to over EC$20 million.

It’s not been disclosed by government how the money was raised to pay salaries for August.

However, informed sources indicate that government received a bailout from the National Insurance Scheme (NIS).

But economist Anthony Boatswain, a senator of the opposition New National Party, has warned against what he calls “excessive borrowing from the NIS.’’

He says such borrowing “can pose a major risk for pensioners and beneficiaries in the future. It can negatively affect the ability of the NIS to sustain itself and meet its commitments in the near future if their reserve is depleted.’’

Boatswain, a former minister of finance, is demanding an urgent convening of parliament “to review this financial crisis being experienced by the government and to put an emergency spending plan in place to avoid similar occurrences in the future.’’

According to Boatswain, the long-term solution to the problem “must be government’s ability is to grow the economy to ensure fiscal sustainability’’.

Arley Gill, Public Relations Officer of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), has said that Prime Minister Thomas and the finance minister ought “to take on board suggestions on easing the economic burden of citizens from the broad membership of the party.’’

Thomas is head of the NDC and Burke is the party’s deputy leader.

A statement issued by the party on Tuesday quotes Gill, a former senator who served as Minister of Information and Culture, as saying that “the NDC empathizes with Grenadians who tell us, for example, of the stress and strain they experience when there is a late payment of monthly salaries; or when they have to send their children back to university overseas without having received the disbursement of the stipend from government.’’

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