Chairman of the United Progressive Party D.Gisele Isaac has
accused Prime Minister Gaston Browne of trying to “save face”
after he claimed that Opposition parliamentarians were included
in the 14 percent salary increase that he and his ministers
awarded themselves.
The Browne Administration recently circulated the 2024
Recurrent Expenditure for Parliament as proof that the
Opposition Benches were to be included in the pay hike.
However, Isaac challenges the prime minister, asking how
Opposition parliamentarians could have been granted a raise
when they neither knew about nor have seen any such salary
increase.
According to the UPP Chair, if everything had been above board,
the matter would not have been shrouded in secrecy.
She adds that, prior to the Administration’s circulation of the
Expenditure page, no Cabinet Notes or any other information
from the Government had announced that any such raise was to
take effect for parliamentarians.
Even more telling are two separate circulars – one dated
December 29, 2023, and the other January 17, 2024 – that were
signed by the financial secretary and addressed to the clerk to
Parliament.
The documents explicitly excludes parliamentarians and
ministers from the January 2024 public-sector salary increases.
Isaac notes that, in a further cover up, the prime minister claimed
there was a “glitch” in the relay of information from the
Parliament.
The UPP chair explains that any such “glitch” is unlikely – since,
with the December 2022 dissolution of Parliament, the term of
office for all parliamentarians – Government and Opposition –
was ended.
All elected persons would then have begun a new term in office
on January 18, 2024.
Therefore, if any such salary increases had been put in place for
all parliamentarians, Isaac says, the Opposition lawmakers would
have been included.
