TERM OF REFERENCE 4: Consider whether the present formula and linkages should be maintained, modified or abandoned.
RECOMMENDATION 2
The practice of linking the salaries of the parliamentarians and the Permanent Secretaries should be discontinued.
The committee is of the view that parliamentarians operate in the public service and as such their remuneration should be set within the framework of public service compensation.
RECOMMENDATION 3
A Permanent Salaries Committee (PSC) should be set up to examine and recommend periodic increases to the salary and allowances (both parliamentary and constituency) of parliamentarians (both MPs and Senators) on a defined basis. Parliament should decide if the recommendations of the PSC would be advisory or binding.
It is suggested that: The committee might comprise of five persons (whose membership would be subject to change), to be appointed by the Governor-General. Three members of the committee to be proposed by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition one of who must be from the public sector.
At least one member of the committee is to be picked by the Prime Minister from a list of names supplied by the unions and at least one member of the committee is to be picked by the Prime Minister from a similar list supplied by the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica.
The PSC would require a secretariat. It is suggested that the secretariat for the current Permanent Salaries Review Board, that considers increases for public sector workers, be considered as the secretariat. The PSC would review the salaries of MPs and Senators at regular intervals, say every two years. The PSC should determine the period between reviews. The first such review might be done to set compensation for the period starting April 1, 2005.
It is recommended that the PSC engage a consulting firm with the relevant experience (e.g., the Hay Group Management Consultants Ltd.) to carry out a job evaluation of parliamentarians. The PSC may wish to establish a formula for making annual incremental adjustments to reflect changes in the cost of living in the interval between reviews.
This committee suggests that this formula might be:
Tied to rate of growth of the economy, or;
Equal to half the inflation rate of the country subject to a cap of the average inflation rate of our major trading partners.
RECOMMENDATION 4
The committee recommends that the compensation of parliamentarians be considered in future as having three separate components
1. Parliamentary Compensation (i.e., payments to compensate the Parliamentarian for his/her work. This would include salary and housing allowance where applicable, and the recommended accountability and transpa-rency payments).
To facilitate better understanding, the committee favours splitting, for presentation purposes, ministerial compensation, to show the amount that is paid to the minister/PM as an MP and what position premium is paid for the additional responsibilities of the ministerial/PM function.
2. Expense reimbursements Parliament (i.e. reimbursements to Parliamentarians for the cost of travelling to Parliament, maintaining a car, and staying in Kingston for parliamentary sittings and committee meetings).
3. Expense reimbursements Constituency. (i.e. reimbursements to parliamentarians for the cost of operating a constituency office and travelling within the constituency).
RECOMMENDATION 5
For simplification, the committee recommends that payments that are intended to be reimbursements or in-lieu-of be determined on a more systematic basis.
1: Parliamentary compensation
a. The current housing allowance of $216,000 p.a. be increased to $600,000 per annum to be more reflective of market conditions.
b. For those Ministers who live in government houses the housing unit of the Ministry of Housing should develop a standard rental charge to be paid by them.
c. The other allowances in this category are the utility allowance and the provision of household staff. The household staff members are paid directly by the state.
2: Expense reimbursements Parliament
The current travelling allowance should be continued. A new and additional taxable parliamentary motor car allowance is to be introduced to compensate for the discontinuation of the 20 per cent duty concession on motorcar imports. (See Recommendation 17 and Appendices 2 and 3). There would be four allowances under the heading expense reimbursements Parliament, namely the ministerial utilities allowance, the car upkeep allowance, the parliamentary car allowance and the parliamentary subsistence allowance.
3: Expense reimbursements constituency. There would be only two paid allowances under this heading. The constituency travel allowance and the general constituency allowance. Other expenses to cover authorised staff costs and costs of furniture and equipment for the constituency offices should be paid directly by the state.
See more in tomorrow's Gleaner.
