By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Chief Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Davis administration will spend $20million a year to sustain its recent civil service salary increases, a cost officials defended yesterday as unions intensified criticism that the adjustments were too small.

OPM Director of Communications Latrae Rahming said the government’s salary update was a “complex” exercise, adding that questions about the size and timing of the increases could not be answered in isolation. He also revealed that over 17,000 civil servants received their salary adjustments on Wednesday. His comments came as some union leaders derided the adjustments as “crumbs” and others claimed certain workers received nothing.

Mr Rahming said the increases varied across categories but rejected suggestions that lower-level staff benefited the least. He said those employees saw the biggest percentage gains because fixed increments were applied.

“For example, a employee in the M6 scale who was making minimum wage in January 2022 would have experienced an increase in salary of 27.5 percent since through wage adjustments, excluding increments,” he said. “For a trained teacher, the increase would be 19.8 percent. In addition, this latest increase of $1,400 would be equivalent to the largest annual increase given to any trained teacher in the BUT’s latest industrial agreement.”

For a deputy permanent secretary, he said the increase would be 15.8 percent.

Mr Rahming said this is the first government-initiated salary review exercise in more than two decades, aside from union-negotiated increases. He added that the annual cost of the recent adjustments is about $20m, and that more than $60m in salary adjustments have been provided to public officers over the past four years.

He said civil servants have received yearly salary increases under the Davis administration — consistency he said had not been seen in more than a decade. He cited upgraded pay, allowances, insurance, and retention bonuses for teachers and nurses; improved entry-level rates, allowances, and overtime systems for law enforcement; and higher scales and increased allowances for line and administrative staff.

“This review focused on correcting the pay system for government employees whose scales had fallen behind for many years,” he said. “ All of this prepared the way for the National Salary Review — the first full modernisation of public service pay in fourteen years.”

He added: “With the final group updated yesterday, every officer in the public service is now in the new structure. Every officer has received an increase. Every officer has received the retroactive amount owed.”

In a statement yesterday, Free National Movement leader Michael Pintard called the payments a “slap in the face” and urged civil servants not to accept “crumbs.” He accused the government of misplacing its priorities by spending on lavish trips and overpriced consultants while failing to properly compensate workers.

He said a Pintard administration would be inclusive, transparent, and open to communication, with a focus on fair contracts, improved training, clear promotion pathways, and better pay. “We will not make promises that we can’t keep to you,” he said.