President of the Guyana Public Service Union Patrick Yarde has said that state-funded projects offering income-generating pursuits for public servants could be a possible option in circumstances where government, over the years, has failed to get around the issue of less than adequate wages and salaries for its employees.
“It could certainly be a workable idea that might help to respond to the problem of wage and salary levels that have long failed to keep with the cost of living,” Yarde said, adding that he believes that President David Granger’s ambition of a more efficient public service might even be realized “if we can find practical ways of addressing the remuneration issue.”
Stabroek Business has seen a copy of a May 25, 2015 document directed to Finance Minister Winston Jordan containing the union’s proposals for the government’s 2015 budget which outlines a range of business ventures for public servants designed to serve as income subsidies. Some of the recommendations include the establishment of “agricultural and poultry farms” as well as “furniture manufacturing projects” and “art and craft production centres” that can be owned and managed by public servants. The union’s proposal which also includes recommendations for the creation of transport services seeks “a subvention to the Guyana Public Service Union for entrepreneurship training for public officers and pilot projects in economic ventures.”
Yarde told Stabroek Business that the union’s inclusion of these recommendations in its budget proposals were premised on the belief that “apart from being concerned with the well-being of the working public servant there was also a need for the union to begin to demonstrate a greater measure of caring for its members beyond their formal working years. We need to be mindful of the ability of our members to accumulate and to save which, as we all know, is difficult in the prevailing circumstances.”
In its budget proposal the GPSU also recommended that government “provide a grant to the union to facilitate recreational activities for its members throughout Guyana.” Specifically, the union is also seeking “a subvention for the development and maintenance of the GPSU Sports Complex as well as staffing for the operation, maintenance and security of the Sports Complex at Thomas Lands.”
Over the years successive political administrations have been criticized for both the low levels of pay in the public service and governments’ failure to provide non-financial amenities for public servants. “The GPSU believes that it is shameful that after working so many years in persistent poverty senior citizens and retirees should be condemned to further poverty in their retirement years,” the document said. The union is also proposing “increases in all pensions payable by the state” and recommends that the National Insurance Scheme “be encouraged to do the same.” Yarde told Stabroek Business that while these proposals did not find favour in the 2015 budget “the union will continue to seek avenues through which to ensure that its proposals find favour with the political administration.”
