D.K. Duncan "It is a question of affordability," says the Minister of Education. Speaking in a televised broadcast on Sunday, she added, responding to the demands of the teachers, "this is the best offer we can make". Minister Henry-Wilson had obviously taped this presentation before reading Don Robotham's article in the Sunday Gleaner. If she had, the broadcast might have taken a more dialectical approach. Simply put, it demonstrated a lack of appreciation of the principle of Action and Reaction.
EXTRAORDINARY MEETING
Robotham's article captioned "The salaries issue: Only a first step" is one of the most insightful so far on this issue. One can only hope that it was mandatory reading at yesterday's Cabinet meeting. If not, I recommend that the Prime Minister summon an extraordinary emergency retreat of his entire Executive-Cabinet Ministers, Ministers of State and Parliamentary Secretaries to revisit the issue of Public Sector Salaries and their increases beginning with those of the Parliamentarians.
The outcome of such a meeting is obvious. The Education Minister said it, the Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance repeated it on a programme also aired on Sunday "This is the best offer we can make". "It is a question of affordability".
ROLL BACK SOMETHING EXTRAORDINARY
The logic of this conclusion is that all public sector salaries, beginning with those of the Parliamentarians and Councillors' salaries, must be rolled back immediately to their March 31, 2002 levels if it is a question of affordability. A corollary of this is that the same principle should be applied to private sector/trade union negotiations. This could form a realistic basis for the repeated call for a Social Contract by the administration. Like the wife of the schizophrenic in the brilliant movie "A Beautiful Mind" I too, "must believe that something extraordinary will happen".
Simultaneously we should abandon the Oliver Clarke Salaries Committee. This new committee is obviously a diversionary tactic designed to repeat or slightly modify the findings of the three previous committees Ashenheim, Sasso and Fletcher.
THE 1991 STONE COMMITTEE
The members of the proposed Clarke Committee could sit, instead, with the former members of the Stone Parliamentary Committee of 1991. They could then be assigned, if willing, the task of implementing the 16 main recommendations.
Thirteen years ago, as Carl Stone put it, "The decision by the Manley Government in 1990 to increase substantially the salaries of the Members of Parliament and Ministers of Government resulted in strong protests and expressions of disapproval by the Jamaican public." To justify the increases, Manley set up a committee under Professor Carl Stone's chairmanship to advise the Jamaican Government on the "performance, accountability and responsibilities of Elected Parliamentarians". After nine months of deliberation, the Committee gave its advice. The report and the advice was completely ignored. Nevertheless, significant increases to the Ministers and MPs were granted.
NO MORAL AUTHORITY
The members of the Executive (Cabinet) and the Political Eunuchs in the Legislature (Parliament) which includes all of the Opposition MPs have all lost their moral authority. While demonstrating what he calls "the deception of the Finance Minister" in relation to the effect of Public Sector salary increases on the budget, the Opposition spokesman on Finance failed on January 21, 2003 in Gordon House to tell us the quantity of his increase as well as the amount of back pay he and the other MPs got as a consequence of this deception. Delroy Chuck drew into his tribal party shell shortly after publicly expressing surprise and alarm at the extent of the increases.
The Ministers, MPs, and those Public Servants who knew, tried very hard to withhold most of the relevant information on the quantity and timing of the increases. We now know that in April 1997, the Prime Minister's salary was $2.1m increasing to $4.7m in October 2002. On hold, waiting for the Oliver Clarke committee to "fly the gate", is a further increase to $5.7m in April 2003, to reach $8.9m in April 2005. An MP who was at a little over $1m in 1997 is now at $2.26m to go to $4.22m in April 2005. The Minister of Education says it is a question of affordability. We cannot afford it, says Don Robotham, for anybody including the teachers.
This kind of governance cannot inspire any positive change in values and attitudes. It cannot persuade stakeholders to participate in a Social Contract. With the collusion of the Opposition, the moribund political system is safe. Where will the moral leadership come from to make the EXTRAORDINARY HAPPEN? One love, One Heart.
A dental surgeon, Dr. D.K. Duncan is a former General Secretary and Minister of Government in the PNP administration of the 1970s. E-mail dktruth@hotmail.com.
