Red Thread member Joy Marcus has challenged former Minister of Labour and current PPP/C parliamentarian Manzoor Nadir to walk in the shoes of the poor class of citizens before making a determination of the adequacy of the salaries they earn to maintain their families.
Marcus, in an interview with the Sunday Stabroek, was responding to a recent statement made by Nadir that the average public servant makes enough to maintain their families. She said Nadir should be asked to give up his salary for that which is earned by the public servant and live on it.
“He can only say that about people; he is on the outside looking in, we are on the inside and we know what it is, we know what it feels like to look at your child and say, ‘I want you to go to school but I don’t have nothing for you to take to it,’” Marcus said.
“He has to live our lives, walk in our shoes and see where it is squeezing and where it is pinching and then he could talk better…” she added.
At a recent press conference, Nadir and PPP leaders argued that the condition of public servants have improved under the party’s watch.
“I go to the market every Sunday; I know what it takes for a family of four or five to put food on the table, to put shelter and so forth. The average public servant, what they make would be very sufficient to put the basic and enable them to acquire some of the material goods every family wants,” Nadir said.
However, Marcus noted that those in high positions drive around in their vehicles while it is the poor and their children who are on the roadways waiting for a bus. It is also the poor who go to the market and spend time haggling with vendors in an effort to “save a dollar here and a dollar there.”
“We are the ones who sitting up in the nights and studying how to make the pittance they give us do… They could talk all sort of things but they don’t know what to worry about where your next meal coming from.
They don’t know what [it is] to worry and hide from your landlord because you don’t want her to behave bad in front of your children for them to be embarrassed,” the Red Thread mother said.
Meanwhile, Opposition Leader David Granger, in an invited comment, said the main opposition APNU was dismayed at Nadir’s statements because in addition to the actual size of public servants’ remunerations, there was the question of the breach of the collective bargaining agreement and the contempt with which the administration had been treating the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU).
Last year, the government announced a 5% increase for public servants across the board as it has done recently, outside of negotiations with the union. “…We certainly don’t feel that public servants are adequately paid. I have no hesitation saying that and we do not feel that the public service union is being properly treated as a partner…” Granger said.
He said two years after the general elections, APNU feels that the opportunity should be taken for the government, opposition, labour and employees to sit down and hammer out a plan or agreement or contract, to determine how Guyana would be governed in the short and middle term.
He questioned what could be considered to be an adequate salary for a public servant, while revealing that the GPSU has calculated the cost for a basket of goods and they feel that household income of about $120,000 would be adequate for public servants.
“…We feel the government should sit with the public service union and negotiate what would be a reasonable salary to enable public servants to live comfortably and discharge their functions as employees of the state.
That is what we call it a contract. A contract is a two sided if not a multilateral agreement,” Granger said.
