The Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) has written Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh for details about the spending of $4.4 billion allocated this year for the revision of wages and salaries in the national budget.
The GPSU has also written Permanent Secretary of the Public Service Ministry Hydar Ally, renewing a previous request for information on all contracted workers in the public service paid from allocations approved in the budget.
The move by the union comes in wake of its protests over the 5% wage increase announced by Cabinet Secretary Roger Luncheon last month and which the union has said falls short of what was budgeted.
Several public institutions, including the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) and the Georgetown Public Hospital, have seen their employees take industrial action over the arbitrary increase, while attempts at conciliation between the Public Service Ministry and the union have resulted in gridlock.
The union has charged that the 2013 budget included allocations in excess of $4 billion to be used specifically to facilitate a 15% wage hike to public servants and has sought an explanation from government for the shortfall, but a senior government official had indicated that the entire allocation was never slated to be used solely for a wage increase.
The money, the official said, was to be used for a combination of purposes, including catering for cases where new employees are taken into the Public Service, and where existing employees are promoted. The official, who participated in the drafting of the budget, said that it was after assessing the expenditure incurred under the category for the year that a decision was taken to raise salaries by 5%.
It is likely that this explanation prompted GPSU on Monday to write to Singh requesting that he provide the details of how the money has been spent.
“The Union wises to be advised on how this allocation in the National Budget was utilized and that you provide the organization with the full particulars of such expenditure,” the GPSU said in the letter, while stating that the matter is one which it deems to be “of major concern to the entire Public Service”
The letter was copied to President Donald Ramotar, Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, Speaker of the House Raphael Trotman, Opposition Leader David Granger, Labour Minister Nanda Gopaul, House Clerk Sherlock Isaacs and Public Service Minister Jennifer Westford.
Westford, subsequent to Luncheon’s announcement, had said that the government was unable to pay anything higher and that public servants should be happy to be receiving the increase. The president has said that cuts made by the opposition to the budget are also to be blamed.
Contracted Employees
Meanwhile, GPSU is also seeking to be provided with wage information on public servants who are employed on a contractual basis in an effort to re-assess/re-evaluate “the rates of pay and allowances received by all categories of employees in the Public Service.”
In the letter to Ally, it noted that it has been requesting “information for all contracted employees in the Public Service that are paid from the allocations approved in the Estimates of the Public Sector-Current and Capital Revenue and expenditure for 2012” since January but is yet to be provided with the information.
“Please be advised that the Union categorically rejects your refusal to provide the requested information and hereby demands that you make this information available immediately to us for the current year i.e. 2013,” the GPSU letter stated.
The fact that the information has not yet been provided is “unacceptable,” the union argued, while adding that the non-provision of the information has delayed its assessment exercise.
GPSU further stated that if the ministry wishes to be line with its professed principles of openness, transparency and the freedom of information, it will provide the requested information.
