Imbert: Govt must return to Parliament to seek extra funds to pay PSA

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor- Pol­i­tics

For­mer min­is­ter of fi­nance Colm Im­bert says the Gov­ern­ment will need to re­turn to Par­lia­ment for ad­di­tion­al fund­ing or present an all new 2026 Bud­get if it in­tends to meet the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion’s re­quest to have back­pay, stem­ming from the still-to-be-ne­go­ti­at­ed “ten per cent” wage in­crease, paid by Christ­mas.

While the PSA has de­clared it has re­ceived a “ten per cent” of­fer from the deputy Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) last Fri­day, Guardian Me­dia has been re­li­ably in­formed that what was pre­sent­ed to PSA Pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas was an in­ten­tion to com­mence ne­go­ti­a­tions and not a for­mal of­fer.

Thomas could not be reached for com­ment for sev­er­al days.

She promised pub­lic ser­vants that ne­go­ti­a­tions would be over in time for them to re­ceive their mon­ey by Christ­mas.

Dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Op­po­si­tion me­dia brief­ing, Im­bert said the Gov­ern­ment will have to come to Par­lia­ment for the ad­di­tion­al funds to cov­er the back­pay.

“There is no bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion in the 2026 ap­pro­pri­a­tion for the pay­ment of the in­crease or the pay­ment of back­pay. So, if it is to be paid, the Gov­ern­ment will have to come to the Par­lia­ment to in­crease the bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion for 2026,” he said.

Im­bert, how­ev­er, added that Gov­ern­ment could do some­thing that is “dan­ger­ous.”

“Now, they could do some­thing un­usu­al, some might even say ir­reg­u­lar, and use mon­ey al­lo­cat­ed for some­thing else to pay it. But that would be quite dan­ger­ous. Be­cause if they do that, then they would have to re­plen­ish wher­ev­er they got that mon­ey from, and they would have to come to the Par­lia­ment and do a sec­ond bud­get for 2026. So, if it is to be paid, there has to be a sec­ond bud­get for 2026.”

Dur­ing a meet­ing of the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee (SFC), Tan­coo re­vealed that no mon­ey was al­lo­cat­ed for the set­tle­ment of the pub­lic ser­vants’ salary pay­ments be­cause ne­go­ti­a­tions were not com­plet­ed.

He re­cent­ly said the Gov­ern­ment has the funds to ho­n­our the com­mit­ment it made to the PSA dur­ing the lead-up to the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tions.

How­ev­er, mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion are ques­tion­ing whether this ma­jor UNC cam­paign promise will ma­te­ri­alise.

For­mer min­is­ter of cul­ture Ran­dall Mitchell al­tered a UNC so­cial me­dia AI-gen­er­at­ed post show­ing peo­ple cel­e­brat­ing with the cap­tion “Promise Kept! Salary In­crease for pub­lic ser­vants.” Mitchell in­stead changed the text to “Promise Al­most Kept. Salary Of­fer of an Of­fer sent.”

Com­ment­ing on the sto­ry on so­cial me­dia, for­mer Tu­na­puna MP Es­mond Forde wrote, “Christ­mas 2025 is 30 days away.”

San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning shared Guardian Me­dia’s sto­ry on the dis­pute of the ten per cent of­fer with the cap­tion, “Dar­ling Fe­l­isha, stop the lies! Re­sign now!”

And Diego Mar­tin May­or Ake­li­ah Glas­gow-Warn­er al­so com­ment­ed on Face­book, say­ing, “I feel sor­ry for PSA mem­bers to be hon­est. This young la­dy (Thomas) is dis­hon­est and way in over her head. She had so many op­por­tu­ni­ties to be hon­est with her mem­ber­ship.”