Vernon Daley, Staff Reporter
MOST JAMAICANS are opposed to the huge salary hike granted to Members of Parliament following last October's General Election but some first-term MPs are rejecting the view that they are overpaid.
About 84 per cent of Jamaicans said they are opposed to the pay increase while some 15 per cent supported it. Those undecided constitute one per cent.
This is among the findings of a poll conducted on the MPs salary issue by pollster Don Anderson on behalf of The Gleaner Company Ltd. Fieldwork for the survey was done between May 9 and 19 and involved interviews with 1,000 persons aged 18 and over in all 14 parishes. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.2 per cent.
The Gleaner-Anderson poll also found that there was general agreement among Jamaicans that the salary being paid to MPs was more than what they were worth. About 82 per cent said that MPs were overpaid while 15 per cent said they were getting what they deserved. Another 0.3 per cent felt they were being underpaid and 2.6 per cent had no response.
First-term MPs who participated in The Gleaner's Editors' Forum on Tuesday, however, frowned at the idea that they were being overpaid given their responsibilities. In fact, some argued that they had to use their salaries to help run their constituencies.
"If the Members of Parliament had a true level of support, I would agree on the salary issue but when that support is not there for running of an office, you realise that you are using your salary to support those activities," said James Robertson, Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) MP for Western St. Thomas.
His colleague, Clive Mullings, MP for West Central St. James, suggested that MPs were not 'fat cats' but rather victims of a political system that failed to provide them with the resources to meet the needs of their constituents.
"If you are going to ask for accountability and performance, give us the tools to do it. You cannot, on the one hand, say, 'We want all of this from you' and at the end of the day you are going to end up criticising how (the MPs) are getting all this big salary," he said.
Both men were among eight MPs, drawn from the governing People's National Party (PNP) and the Opposition JLP, who participated in the forum.
Controversy broke out earlier this year following initial reports by The Gleaner that MPs had been given a huge pay raise, pushing their salary from $1.08 million to $2.2 million per annum.
As part of the general adjustment to bring the salaries of civil servants closer to those paid in the private sector, the salary of MPs should have moved another 20 per cent on April 1, 2003, to be followed by a 20 per cent movement on April 1, 2004 and a final 30 per cent adjustment which was scheduled for April 1, 2005.
REVIEW COMMITTEE
However, a storm of criticism from several interest groups and the wider public led Prime Minister P.J. Patterson to put a freeze on further increases to MPs, pending the findings of a review committee chaired by Oliver Clarke, managing director and chairman of The Gleaner Company.
The committee is looking at whether the formula of linking the salary of MPs to those of civil servants, should be changed. It has since met with a number of politicians and interest groups and has also invited submissions from the public. It is expected to reveal its findings soon.
At the same time, most of those interviewed for the Gleaner/ Anderson poll said that MPs should not be paid more than certain other public servants, including an all-age school principal; a high school teacher; the Commissioner of Police; a manager of a hospital; and a resident magistrate.
But even as most Jamaicans held firm to the view that MPs were being paid too much, there was vast confusion among the public as to the salary actually being paid to the political representatives.
About 27 per cent of all persons said the salary was between $1 million and $1.5 million. Another 21.2 per cent said it was between $2.2 million and $3 million. Between these two views, there were several other estimates.
Said Anderson: "The wide disparity in the answers suggests that people do not know what the salary is but they do have a perspective that it is at a level that should not need any adjustment."
