Hughes stands by salary omission

FINANCIAL SECRETARY Dr Wesley Hughes has defended the Government's decision not to have included a provision in the original Budget for the payment of salary increases to public-sector workers.

Hughes said the 2011-2012 Budget was predicated on a wage freeze and that the tabling of the first Supplementary Estimates is to take account of a subsequent seven per cent increase which broke that freeze.

Fitz Jackson, a member of the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee, on Tuesday questioned the rationale behind leaving the salary increase out of the original Budget, but Hughes said it was not possible to include it in April.

Nothing was agreed

"There were negotiations and there were permutations being considered including paying just one year's and asking the union to give up the other two years'; phasing the payment over a longer period ... there were a number of permutations and nothing was agreed," Hughes told the committee as it sat at the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston.

"It was difficult for the ministry staff to put a number in knowing fully well that we were not sure whether there would have been an agreement based on the dynamics at the time. The feeling was that if there was a settlement, we would come to that in a supplementary Budget and this is where we are now," Hughes added.

The Government, in August, agreed to pay $31.5 billion in increase to public-sector workers over three years, $9.2 billion of which is being paid this year.

"It is not that it was not thought about," Hughes said.