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The government may have had to backpedal very quickly on the lavish phone allowance for its CEO's, but tonight the Prime Minister is saying that they didn't do it because of pressure from the unions.
As we have reported - the Financial Secretary sent the Cabinet Secretary notice of approval of the 140% increase in allowance on November 14th. It went unnoticed for 9 days - until last Thursday when a copy of the email leaked. That sent the labour unions immediately into battle ready mode, warning the government that the audacity of the allowance increase had them ready to "strike up".
And, by Tuesday morning, government sheepishly rescinded the allowance. The CEO's caucus was designated as the fall guy. A release said they had unanimously decided that the approval should be rescinded - approval, which our sources say, they never even asked for. The idea, it seems, originated with the Cabinet Secretary who wanted to harmonize the phone alliances for all CEO's with that of the Prime Minister's CEO, Narda Garcia - who gets $600 per month - same as her UDP predecessor Audrey Wallace.
It's all blown up really badly for the government - but despite the tight time frame between the leak and the rescission, today the Prime Minister rejected the narrative that it was rescinded due to pressure from the unions:
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"That's that's something that has passed. I mean, when they see you in their chat group, you know, when they saw that figure they said, it's not worth it. To be able to to have that that kind of negative backlash and they have willingly given up that phone allowance. So it's no longer there."
Reporter:
"It was not because of the Unions?"
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"It had nothing to do with the unions. They themselves have agreed to say, you know, we are prepared to to give it up."
"It's not worth it to be in a back and forth with anyone over that."
