So, there you have it: government will fully restore the public officers' salary as of July 1st.
That's the official announcement this evening, but this morning on Sunup on 7, The Prime Minister was a little more conservative, he said they were contemplating staggering the restoration of the 10%.
But the discussions don't end there, since the government is now looking at pension reform. PM John Briceno explained that the non-contributory pension is costing the government about a hundred million dollars every year and it is unsustainable.
They're hoping to broker a deal where public officers start putting money towards their pension. But seeing as the non-contributory pension is the reason many join the public sector, we're not sure how well this will go over with the unions. This is how the PM put it this morning:
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"We're going to discuss pension reform. As it is right now, the non-contributory pension that the offers get is costing us, it's already about $100,000,000 per year and by 2025 it might be as much as 150,000,000, it's unsustainable. So we're looking at that, they've pretty much agreed to do a pension reform. We're looking at what kind of benefits we could give our public officers, all within the scope of maintain fiscal prudence."
Cherisse Halsall:
"That's going to be a huge change, isn't it pm because once upon a time that was the reason to become a public officer, that non-contributory pension that people would believe would set you up in your old age."
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Yeah but the problem is that it's unsustainable so it's not a matter that there won't be anything for them, we're looking at setting up another pension system or scheme whereby they will contribute something, we contribute something, and when you combine that with the social security then you'll be better off. Presently, and good for them, there are many instances where public officers retire at 55 after working 20/25 years with government. With the pension they collect from government and the pension they collect from social security, there are many instances where some of these public officers are probably paying more than their salary when they were working. Point is it's unsustainable and we have to fix it. Successive governments have been talking about it in the fringes but have never sat down to really discuss it."
We reached out to PSU president, Dean Flowers, for comment but up to news time he had not responded.
