The Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) says while Government made a step in the right direction by moving the tax threshold to $50,000 monthly or $600,000 a year as announced in the budget, it has failed to increase wages and lower income tax.
“By no stretch of the imagination could any self-respecting person who values working class contributions and welfare, consider the just released budget as pro-working class, when the reality is that at the end of the day so many working people and their families would continue to suffer abject poverty,” the GPSU said in a statement dated April 7, 2012 in response to the budget.
The GPSU dared the advocates of the budget to maintain their current lifestyles with four times the amount that they claim is sufficiently adequate for the hard working public servant.
The body said the lowering of the tax threshold, while welcomed, is by itself insufficient since tax relief is also needed by persons earning above the income tax threshold. It said that the significant tax burden remains on the working class with the retention of the 33 1/3 percent income tax and 16 percent VAT,” it said. “Additionally the just announced budget does not include measures to widen the tax net to recover taxes from a significant number of self employed persons, who are currently in default,” the GPSU said.
The union charged that Government is bent on miniaturizing the current public service structure through contract employment, noting that such employment has grown by 15.8 percent over 2011, almost double that of regular employment which was increased by 8.4 percent.
“The parallel public service…has impugned the independence of the public service. This practice is illegal and baseless and should cease,” the GPSU said.
“All employees should be employed within the public service structure and remunerated in a fair and even handed manner receiving equal pay for work of equal value consistent with Government’s undertakings and obligations as a member state of the International Labour Organisation (ILO),” it said.
The body also called for the subsidizing of electricity for public servants but said that care must be taken to distinguish between the consumption of these persons as against that of commercial businesses, since a subsidy could benefit all.
Prior to the presentation of the budget, the GPSU called for a 25 percent hike in salary for public service employees, a non-contributory health insurance scheme for employees and their families and for the upping of allowances that have been overcome by years of stagnation and inflation.
Among the increases that the GPSU is seeking for employees under its purview are travelling and subsistence allowances which were last increased in 1995, uniform allowance last increased in 2001, meal allowance last increased in 1996, housing allowance last increased in 2009 and other allowances as a condition of service.
The GPSU called for increases in advances to public servants who are entitled to loans to purchase vehicles to be used in the execution of their duties.
The union also called for there to be provision of resources to make possible increases in state pensions, including NIS by a minimum of 50 percent and an allocation that would cater for housing and infrastructure projects for low and middle income public servants and for primary health care.
The GPSU called for the reinstatement of the Critchlow Labour College subvention and the liquidation of all of that institution’s existing liabilities.
The debate on the budget commences at 13:00 hours today in the National Assembly.
