PPP suggests Disciplined Forces need one-month tax-free salary

Last Updated on Monday, 21 December 2015, 18:47 by GxMedia

The main opposition People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) Monday suggested that members of the Disciplined Services have been deprived of an extra one-month salary which would have been more than the across-the-board GYD$50,000 bonus.

“How could you equate fifty-thousand (dollars) with a man who may be getting let’s say a hundred thousand as his salary?,” PPP General Secretary, Clement Rohee said. He reasoned that a member of the Disciplined Services earning GYD$250,000 would have received an extra month’s salary tax-free.

He stopped short of categorically calling on government to pay members of the Guyana Defence Force, Guyana Police Force, Guyana Prison Service and Guyana Fire Service and Guyana Prison Service the extra month’s salary.

Rohee, a former Home Minister of Affairs, shrugged off questions about whether the coalition government should follow the trend that has been established by the PPP-Civic administration. “Our concern is that it has been a practice over the years and we want to know if there is an exception in 2015 to what has been established over the years,” he told a news conference.

The PPP General Secretary called on  President David Granger to state his position publicly on the matter since he failed to do so at the traditional serving of lunch to ranks of the Guyana Defense Force which was done on Thursday, December 19, 2015, at Base Camp Stephenson.

“In the circumstances, the PPP calls on the Granger administration to make an announcement on the matter immediately since Guyanese are in the midst of the Christmas season which as everyone knows is the season for caring and sharing,” he said.

The Guyana government earlier this month announced a more than GYD$1 billion bonus  to public sector workers including nurses, teachers, members of the Disciplined Services at flat amount of GYD$50,000 tax-free.

The Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) has welcomed the bonus but at the same time has flayed government for failing to negotiate the amount. The GTUC and the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union have since said that the bonus has now formed part of the conditions of service.