| 10 percent pay cut for civil servants draws ire | | Print | |
| Thursday, 18 March 2010 07:52 | |||
 Political leaders from both the People's Democratic Movement and the Progressive National Party went on record with their objections to the Governor’s decision to cut civil servants' salaries by 10 percent. PDM leaders are calling it “a retaliatory move against the people and political parties,” while PNP leader Galmo Williams said the cut was “a systematic abuse and showed flagrant disregard for the lives and aspirations of the people of these islands.” At a media briefing held Thursday, March 12, PDM leader Doug Parnell said he wanted to go on record as saying the $85 million loan was not to pay government salaries. “The governor has made a conscious choice to mislead the civil service about the purpose of the loan,” Parnell said, “by intentionally omitting key components of the loan in order to deflect the Interim Administrations failures in negotiating on behalf of the people of the TCI.”Deputy leader Clarence Selver added, “This is politics, what the Governor and others are trying to do is to trying to maintain public support. They want to now deflect the failure for them concluding this loan to political organizations.” The governor announced the across the board paycut in letters to civil servants just one day after the “Unity march” which was held on Commonwealth Day, March 11. Parnell also said he and his party believe the timing of the cut was not coincidental. “It seemed to be very arbitrary. The day after you had thousands of people march together for a common purpose in the Turks and Caicos, there is a 10% pay cut.” Parnell did not believe the governor’s reason given for the pay cut – the unsuccessful conclusion of the $85 million loan, saying, “It defies reason. There are people who earn larger sums of money and people who are at the lower scale and you would think that the six months of time that has expired under the interim administration they would have had an opportunity to process where cuts should have been taken.” Governor Wetherell explained, “What has happened as a result of not being able to conclude this deal now, is that a cash flow crunch is on us now, rather than in six or seven months time. We have no alternatives but to take measures now, that is what happened.” In an interview with the fp, Permanent Secretary for Finance Delton Jones explained, “We have a significant deficit and most of the areas have been cut.” Jones also said at the present time, any further cuts could put critical services, such as police, at risk. Jones said given the current situation, there were only two other choices. “The alternative was to lay people off, which has it problems or tax more, which also has its problems." Parnell said the governor is lying to the people, saying the loan was not intended to specifically pay civil servants salaries. He believes the Interim government was making a conscious decision to choose to pay bills that are in most instances outside of the Turks and Caicos. “Most of the $85 million would not have stimulated the local economy,” he said. The governor has said that a portion of the money was scheduled to pay off high interest bank overdraft as well as creditor debt, but said local creditors would be given priority in the payoff process, which would have put money back into the economy. The governor explained the money would have cleared up a great deal of over due debt which would then have allowed the government to pay reoccurring bills on-time, such as salaries. “It (the loan) would have given us a breathing space to carry on for several months, during which time we would have been able to work on other solutions,” the governor said. Jones also pointed to the approaching slow season as being a reason the loan was so critical at this time. “Revenue is down, during our highest revenue period, he explained, “There is a marked seasonality due to the type of economy we have, so we have to get through the down periods when revenue is down and expenditure is up and given the problems with the loan, it has made that situation worse.“ Williams says his party dismisses statements in relation to financial mismanagement and abuse by previous administrations as “an excuse by the Wetherell regime for his inability to grow and attract foreign investment into the economy.” Williams explained the drop in revenue for the current fiscal year to be a direct result of Wetherell’s occupation and his failed policies. “It defeats economic logic the way in which this administration intends to spur economic growth in order to stabilize and increase government’s revenue whiles decreasing overall spending in the economy and fostering a state of uncertainty,” he said.
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