CPO: Govt maintaining cash, non-cash mix for PSA backpay

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Dr Daryl Din­di­al says Gov­ern­ment is main­tain­ing its po­si­tion that the set­tle­ment of back­pay ar­rears owed to mem­bers of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) must in­volve a com­bi­na­tion of cash and non-cash pay­ments.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Din­di­al con­firmed that dis­cus­sions on the is­sue are still on­go­ing.

“I can con­firm the Gov­ern­ment is main­tain­ing all set­tle­ment of ar­rears must be a mix of cash and non-cash. I won’t be able to say any­thing fur­ther, since par­ties are still dis­cussing the mat­ter,” the CPO said.

The com­ments come amid a dis­pute that emerged in De­cem­ber be­tween the PSA and the Of­fice of the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer, de­spite both sides pre­vi­ous­ly sign­ing off on a 10 per cent wage in­crease for pub­lic ser­vants.

At the cen­tre of the dis­agree­ment is how an es­ti­mat­ed $3.8 bil­lion in back­pay will be paid to more than 25,000 PSA mem­bers.

PSA mem­bers be­gan re­ceiv­ing a par­tial, flat-rate cash ad­vance of their es­ti­mat­ed back­pay by De­cem­ber 23, 2025, while the re­main­ing pay­ments are ex­pect­ed to be de­liv­ered through a com­bi­na­tion of cash and oth­er non-cash mea­sures.

How­ev­er, the struc­ture of those non-cash com­po­nents has been a ma­jor stick­ing point in ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween the union and the Gov­ern­ment.

Un­der the wage agree­ment, pub­lic ser­vants were grant­ed a 10 per cent salary in­crease, with the new salary struc­ture tak­ing ef­fect in Jan­u­ary 2026.

PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas had pre­vi­ous­ly pub­licly ac­cused the CPO of block­ing the pay­ments on so­cial me­dia, post­ing, “Chief Per­son­nel Ob­struc­tion­ist.” How­ev­er, Din­di­al has pushed back, say­ing the PSA’s in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the agree­ment does not re­flect the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion and that non-cash op­tions were al­ways part of the dis­cus­sions, an arrange­ment which Gov­ern­ment al­so seems in align­ment with.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo told Guardian Me­dia that the mat­ter re­mains un­der ac­tive dis­cus­sion.

“This mat­ter is still with the CPO. I be­lieve that the union ap­pre­ci­ates the ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion we in­her­it­ed from the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion and will con­sid­er non-cash op­tions as part of the set­tle­ment of ne­go­ti­a­tions,” Tan­coo said.