While a performance-based mechanism for determining pay rises for Jamaica’s parliamentarians is the preferred option, this newspaper believes that the hikes announced this week for MPs are neither scandalous nor vulgar and should be implemented.
The People’s National Party’s outrage over the increases is, on the face of it, an opportunistic attempt to latch on to the concerns of some public servants over the poor implementation of their own wage hikes, and absent any real analysis of the issues at hand.
If indeed the Opposition’s intention is a serious debate of an important matter, it should offer its own formula for determining MPs’ pay, in which event we suggest the findings of the 2004 Clarke Committee as a starting point. In the meantime, the Holness administration should, as that committee, chaired by the late Oliver Clarke, recommended, establish a permanent commission to periodically review the remunerations of legislators and set it to work immediately, preparing for the next wage cycle.
The trigger of this controversy was the government’s reclassification of public sector jobs, leading to increases in the salaries of a wide range of public servants, whose remunerations were adjusted to match the salaries of people doing similar jobs elsewhere in the government.
It was also intended to make the public sector a more attractive employer. Wages have increased by a minimum of 20 per cent, to employees who were at, or near, the top of the food chain. In some instances, the hikes are above 200 per cent.
The reclassification also meant adjusting the salaries of parliamentarians, whose pay is linked to civil servants’. Cabinet ministers earn J$52 a year more than permanent secretaries.
The prime minister’s pay, however, is a third higher than that of other ministers, except for the deputy prime minister (Horace Chang) and the finance minister (Nigel Clarke), who, respectively, earned 16.5 per cent and eight per cent more than their other Cabinet colleagues.
The remunerations of other members of the executives and MPs are similarly based on ministerial salaries. A regular member of the House with no position earned 62 per cent of a minister’s pay.
FORMULA
Until now, that formula placed the salary of Prime Minister Andrew Holness at J$9.16 million annually. Under the new arrangement the prime minister’s salary moved in April to J$22.33 million, an increase of 144 per cent. Over the next two years, the PM’s pay will jump by a further 28 per cent, or J$6.255 million, reaching J$28.6 million.
However, with the adjusted formula, rather than 33 per cent, the prime minister will earn 25 per cent more than regular Cabinet ministers, whose salary will be approximately J$17.9 million, a hike of 159 per cent. By 2024 that will rise by another J$5 million, or 28 per cent.
The Opposition has characterised the hikes as “morally indefensible … while so many of our dedicated public servants have seriously lost out and are utterly demoralised by the lack of equity in the recent salary restructuring”.
Wage settlements, like the outcomes of most negotiations, aren’t usually to the full satisfaction of all parties. And while Finance Minister Clarke might have insisted on agreements being signed with what many people considered to be indecent haste, the trade unions and their delegates didn’t have to acquiesce, especially if they were convinced that Dr Clarke’s argument that failing to sign would inevitably lead to long delays in the settlement of arrears was spurious.
In any event, most of the union complaints about agreements are about calculations of pay and related anomalies, rather than of the underlying agreement.
Fundamentally, the question at this point isn’t the relative merits of what public servants and MPs are to be paid, or even whether MPs, on the basis of their performance, deserve their hikes. Rather, it is if legislators are adequately paid.
Despite our deep reservations about many of those who sit in Gordon House, this newspaper can’t declare with full authority on all their capacities, especially outside the House.
POORLY PRICED
However, we are clear that the job, for what we expect of MP, as legislators and constituency representatives, was, hitherto, very poorly priced. The public reclassifications should temper the exodus of the most talented staff from the public sector. And while we appreciate that the alignment of the salaries of the civil servants and MPs will push the remunerations of Jamaica’s legislators above Caribbean counterparts, the new compensations are in keeping with the levels of pay that should make political representation more attractive to people who Jamaicans would wish to see in the chambers of Parliament.
Integrity can neither be legislated nor bought. Nonetheless, the new salaries should offer a bit more insulation against the tug of corruption.
People should, however, perform for their pay. Salaries, therefore, including those of politicians, should be linked to tangible outcomes. Which is why we appreciate the proposal of the Clarke Committee that annual adjustments of MPs salaries should be linked to policy outcomes, such as Jamaica’s inflation relative to the island’s major trading partners, and the country’s economic growth.
The Clarke Committee also proposed that MPs be made to earn incentives for tabling full and proper reports on their performance and activities, and for being transparent in their activities, including the timely filing of statutory declarations.
The Clarke report deserves revisiting – and updating.
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May 19, 2023 at 12:20PM
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Editorial | MPs pay not vulgar | Commentary - Jamaica Gleaner
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