When Cheddi Jagan came to office in October 1992 he did a most unusual thing for the working people in the public service. In April 1993, he increased the minimum wage by some 46% and backdated it to nine months before he came to office!
There are suggestions in the public domain (A simple explanation of the Ministers’ salary increase, KN 18/10/2015) that on coming to office, Jagan somewhat surreptitiously gave large salary increases to his ministers.
I know Cheddi Jagan sufficiently well to know that hell would have had to freeze over and pigs fly before he would have even considered giving ministers the large increases the current regime has given itself without giving at least commensurate increases to the working people in his employ. Furthermore, quite apart from the fact that all whom I have contacted have no recollection of such unusual payments and ministerial increases have to be gazetted and placed in parliament, as I shall show below, the political context of the time did not allow for any such clandestine maneuverings.
After nearly three decades in opposition, Jagan came to government in October 1992, when the Economic Recovery Programme (ERP), introduced by President Desmond Hoyte, was at its apogee. In relation to salaries, government employees had been given little relief from the