St. George’s, November 15, 2008: The opposition is shocked and concerned that the new administration has been able to gather the courage to reduce the pay for persons involved in the debushing programme.
While Ministers of Government continue to enjoy their same salary, they have taken a decision to cut the pay of the poor road workers, many of whom are facing serious economic challenges as the price of basic food items increase daily and when many persons through out the country are complaining that they are finding it difficult to put food on their table.
The NNP while in office, provided salary increases to public servants including teachers, police officers and others. The Keith Mitchell led administration also gave increases to agricultural workers. Recognising the rising cost of living and considering that the road workers had not gotten an increase in a long time, the NNP administration decided to increase the rate paid to road workers.
This action was condemned by the NDC Government as they had to find a reason to justify the reduction in pay. The excuse given by the Minister for Works is that the increase was politically driven. If this is the reason, then why is it that the NDC did not reduce the salaries of other workers who recently got increases under the Keith Mitchell administration?
The statements by the Minister have been consistent with a ‘don’t care’ attitude for the poor, since he has made similar statements regarding the NNP’s decision to increase monies spent on the debushing programme earlier this year. The opposition questions why the Government is always pressuring the most vulnerable to make sacrifices since it was also the poor who were expected to come out and do voluntary service over the last few months when the clean up drive was organized around the island.
It must be noted that the NNP administration always looked out for the poor and vulnerable in a special way. Special programmes were introduced or expanded to assist the vulnerable to deal with the rising cost of living, such as: the milk programme, the food basket programme, the school voucher programme, the debushing programme, transportation support programme and more. It should be recalled that in the 2002 Budget Presentation, Finance Minister at the time, Anthony Boatswain announced Cabinet’s decision to reduce the salaries of all Ministers by 10%. That decision was taken against the backdrop of the slow down in Grenada’s economy following the events of September 11th. As a result of this decision, the salary of Ministers moved from $65,000 per annum to $58, 500 per annum.
The opposition therefore calls on the new Government in these tough economic times to reconsider its decision and to return to the previous rate paid to the road workers.
