Tancoo maintains 40% cash proposal for PSA arrears

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo says the Gov­ern­ment has al­lo­cat­ed fund­ing in the 2027 Bud­get to pay 40 per cent of out­stand­ing ar­rears owed to Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) mem­bers in cash, de­spite the union’s re­jec­tion of the pro­pos­al.

Speak­ing dur­ing the Bud­get 2027 pre­sen­ta­tion in Par­lia­ment, Tan­coo said the al­lo­ca­tion was based on the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer’s pro­pos­al to pay 40 per cent of the out­stand­ing ar­rears in cash.

The Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al would see the re­main­ing 60 per cent set­tled through non-cash ben­e­fits, with the pay­ments spread over three years.

The PSA had re­ject­ed the arrange­ment, de­scrib­ing it as dis­re­spect­ful to work­ers who are owed back­pay aris­ing from the ten per cent wage in­crease for the pe­ri­ods 2014 to 2016 and 2017 to 2019.

Last month, PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas told Guardian Me­dia that the union would not rule out protest­ing if a sat­is­fac­to­ry arrange­ment was not reached.

“The PSA will not be ac­cept­ing that,” Thomas said, re­ject­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s of­fer of 40 per cent cash pay­ments over three years.

The union had counter-pro­posed that 60 per cent of the ar­rears be paid in cash, with the re­main­ing 40 per cent paid as de­ferred cash.

De­spite the im­passe, Tan­coo said the Gov­ern­ment had made pro­vi­sion for the PSA ar­rears in the 2027 Bud­get. He al­so re­called that the Gov­ern­ment pro­vid­ed a par­tial cash pay­ment of $230 mil­lion to PSA mem­bers in De­cem­ber 2025.

The Fi­nance Min­is­ter said the Gov­ern­ment had al­lo­cat­ed close to $2.5 bil­lion to meet out­stand­ing wage and salary oblig­a­tions to cur­rent and re­tired pub­lic of­fi­cers.

The al­lo­ca­tions in­clude $252 mil­lion for new wage rates and cost-of-liv­ing al­lowance (CO­LA) for mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW), along with $510 mil­lion for ar­rears.

A fur­ther $44.9 mil­lion has been al­lo­cat­ed for ar­rears owed to the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion, $45.4 mil­lion for the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion and $281.8 mil­lion for the De­fence Force.

“This Per­sad-Bisses­sar Gov­ern­ment did more for the Work­ers’ Agen­da in 18 months than the PNM did in 10 years,” Tan­coo said.

He al­so pledged to con­tin­ue en­gag­ing trade unions with un­re­solved ne­go­ti­a­tions, in­clud­ing the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union, the Trans­port and In­dus­tri­al Work­ers’ Union, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Postal Work­ers’ Union and the Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Trade Union.

Those ne­go­ti­a­tions in­volve work­ers at sev­er­al state agen­cies and en­ter­pris­es, in­clud­ing T&TEC, UWI, UTT, NP, Nat­Pet, the Na­tion­al Train­ing Agency, Na­tion­al Quar­ries, YTEPP, Na­tion­al He­li­copters, MTS, PTSC, TTPost and LATT.