[www.inewsguyana.com] – The perception that contract workers are receiving ‘super salaries’ was recently debunked by Minister of Public Service, Dr. Jennifer Westford during a recent interview on ‘Political Scope’ aired on the State television.
The minister was at the time highlighting some of the functions of the Public Service Ministry, which include the management of key public institutions, development of the human capital and ensuring a peaceful industrial climate.
The Political Opposition are of the view that contract workers are earning “super salaries”, but Minister Westford explained that the difference between a contract worker and one on the pensionable establishment is that the latter will work until age 55 or 60 years and receive a pension, while the contract worker receives a contract gratuity every six months.
She said this payment is based on the same pension scheme calculation of 22.5 % of the contracted worker’s salary. Minister Westford said that according to the public service law, “any public service staff can decide whether they want to be a pension worker or a contract worker”.
However, there is a category of workers employed based on foreign funded projects and are paid based on what the projects provide.
“You have a category of contracted workers, working in the public sector that does not hold a position in the public service. Those people are on foreign funded projects and the projects determine the salaries of those persons…some of those projects are coming to an end; their salaries are adjusted because they would now be on the public service payroll,” Minister Westford stressed.
I want the government or any other government in future in this country to re-examine the duty free concession on vehicles that senior officers get in Guyana.
There are many persons who are contracted on a year by year basis and they get their 22.5% gratuity which is equivalent to the pension the public servants will enjoy but public servants also qualify for duty free as long as they serve 3 yrs and over in a senior job.
This is unfair to the masses, let say i work 3 yrs and get a 1500 cc vehicle duty free at the end of the period i qualify again for another vehicle no limit. Why not increase that to five years and why not make that available to contracted employees who may have over 5 years of services.
Let say i am a public servant who qualify and i work for 15 year i would have being entitled for 15/3= 5 duty free vehicles for one employee, Over a 5 year period this same 5 vehicles could be given to 5 employees serving over 5 years under contracts…at the end of the day it is the same workers who have to do the same job and pay the same taxes.
It makes no sense giving re-migrants duty free furniture, vehicles and other tax breaks and they only come back to Guyana temporarily when you have workers that work on contract 10 years and over and cant even get a 1000cc vehicle duty free or even 50% duty waiver.
is not super salaries but is super super salaries compare to what the working poor getting..lets put it this way then..the working poor have to pay a high price for transport..for food..for water..for electricity..ok..we have that cleared..these same working poor are paying their fair share of taxes to those that are on contracts..do they have a problem buying food paying for high electricity and water cost ..hell no no no..the working poor pay all that and much more for them..