Senior Minister in the Office of the President with Responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, today announced that the Government has granted approval for a one-off two-week tax-free bonus to be paid to all government employees in the health sector, a release from the Ministry of Finance said.
The release said that the bonus at a total estimated cost of $612 million will benefit 9,200 employees in the sector. Singh further indicated that instructions have been issued for the bonus to be paid before the end of the current week.
The release said that at the time that the Government announced the 2021 across-the-board increase for central government employees, Singh had indicated that an amount of $400 million had been set aside to be paid to frontline workers in the health sector who have continued to face extenuating circumstances in the daily discharge of their duties battling the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The release added that Government has decided to make the payment applicable to all workers in the health sector, having taken into account the challenges involved in identifying which specific posts in the health sector constitute frontline posts and which do not.