And while thinking of those trusty frontliners is sure to pull at anyone's heartstrings - the PM says the matter is cut and dry: there's just no more money to pay them:
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"We prepared to continue talking to them, but the fact of the matter is and without being in any way disrespectful is that we just don't have the money. There is no money to be able to continue pay the amount of wages that are in front of us and as I pointed out its not only the unions or the employees of the government that are making cuts or just by doing that we are balancing the budget, we're cutting on our projects, we're cutting on all of our expenditures all over the place. All of us have to do our little bit. Everywhere in the Caribbean you are starting to hear more and more countries are talking about that they don't have more monies to continue to pay salaries. We by extension are doing our utmost best to keep everybody working. If we'd had follow the dictates of the IMF we'd have been getting rid of at least 3,000 government employees and also raise GST by 19% and we don't want to go in that direction."
Government says it borrowed 30 million dollars last month to meets its recurrent commitments.
