The PSA payoff

Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­[email protected]

For the pe­ri­od the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) and the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) ne­go­ti­at­ed, the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment’s to­tal av­er­age an­nu­al rev­enue be­tween 2014 and 2019 was $46.85 bil­lion.

How­ev­er, be­tween 2020 and 2024, the av­er­age an­nu­al rev­enue de­clined to $46.5 bil­lion, sug­gest­ing that the Gov­ern­ment has found it more dif­fi­cult to earn mon­ey.

The Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment’s to­tal av­er­age an­nu­al ex­pen­di­ture be­tween 2014 and 2019 was $53.98 bil­lion, mean­ing there was an av­er­age an­nu­al loss/deficit of $7.1 bil­lion dur­ing the pe­ri­od.

With a wage bill that is ex­pect­ed to in­crease in this fis­cal year and in the com­ing years, a ten per cent prece­dent agree­ment could im­pact the next ne­go­ti­at­ing pe­ri­od for 2020 to 2023.

Two mark­ers would be the con­sumer price in­dex and the in­fla­tion fig­ure.

Ac­cord­ing to Cen­tral Bank da­ta, be­tween the ne­go­ti­at­ing pe­ri­od 2014 and 2019, the year-on-year change in the con­sumer price in­dex (CPI) in­fla­tion rate av­er­aged 2.6 per cent.

The CPI mea­sures the av­er­age change over time in prices paid for a mar­ket bas­ket of con­sumer goods and ser­vices.

Ac­cord­ing to Cen­tral Bank da­ta, the year-on-year rate of in­fla­tion be­tween 2013 and 2018 in­creased, with a CPI year-on-year change av­er­age of 3.5 per cent.

Be­tween 2020 and 2024, the CPI year-on-year change av­er­aged 2.8 per cent, mean­ing that the in­fla­tion rate in­creased af­ter the ne­go­ti­at­ing pe­ri­od (2014 to 2019), sug­gest­ing in­fla­tion and the pres­sure on work­ers’ pock­ets in­creased.

The year with the high­est year-on-year in­crease dur­ing that pe­ri­od was 2014, at 8.5 per cent. The low­est, in 2019, was 0.4 per cent.

The av­er­age un­em­ploy­ment rate, ac­cord­ing to the Cen­tral Bank’s da­ta, was 3.95 per cent. Be­tween 2013 and 2018, the av­er­age un­em­ploy­ment rate was less than the ne­go­ti­at­ing pe­ri­od, 3.85 per cent. Be­tween 2020 and 2024, how­ev­er, the av­er­age un­em­ploy­ment rate in­creased to five per cent.

Be­tween 2013 and 2018, the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment’s av­er­age an­nu­al ex­pen­di­ture was high­er—54.5 bil­lion—but be­cause rev­enues were high­er, it re­sult­ed in a low­er av­er­age an­nu­al deficit of $5.6 bil­lion.

How­ev­er, be­tween 2020 and 2024, the av­er­age an­nu­al ex­pen­di­ture dipped very slight­ly to $54.3 bil­lion, but giv­en the de­creased rev­enues, the an­nu­al av­er­age deficit in­creased to $7.8 bil­lion.

This da­ta sug­gest­ed that while the gov­ern­ment’s ex­pen­di­ture re­mained more or less con­sis­tent, its abil­i­ty to earn was be­com­ing an in­creas­ing chal­lenge.

This was fur­ther ev­i­dent in the 41 per cent in­crease in the gov­ern­ment’s to­tal out­stand­ing debt from March 2015 ($82.9 bil­lion) to March 2025 ($117.3 bil­lion), ac­cord­ing to Fi­nance Min­istry da­ta.

To­tal out­stand­ing debt is the to­tal amount of mon­ey the gov­ern­ment owes to lenders at any point in time.

Ac­cord­ing to Cen­tral Bank da­ta, the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment spent $9.4 bil­lion on cost-of-liv­ing al­lowances and salaries in fis­cal 2022/2023 and was pro­ject­ed to pay $10.4 bil­lion in fis­cal 2023/2024 and an­oth­er $9.7 bil­lion in 2024/2025.

In fis­cal 2025, as a re­sult of the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the rec­om­men­da­tions of the SRC in De­cem­ber 2024 by for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, the salaries and CO­LA of sev­er­al high-rank­ing pub­lic of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing the prime min­is­ter, op­po­si­tion leader and min­is­ters, in­creased, lead­ing to a pro­ject­ed high­er an­nu­al salary bill.

For ex­am­ple, ac­cord­ing to 2026 bud­get re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture doc­u­ments, the salaries and CO­LA paid un­der Par­lia­ment were pro­ject­ed to in­crease by 72 per cent from fis­cal 2024 ($19.49 mil­lion to fis­cal 2025 ($33.5 mil­lion). The doc­u­ments pro­ject­ed a 58 per cent in­crease in salary and CO­LA pay­ments at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter from fis­cal 2024 ($19.85 mil­lion) to fis­cal 2025 ($31.3 mil­lion).

Ac­cord­ing to re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture da­ta for fis­cal 2024, which lists 42 state en­ti­ties, in­clud­ing min­istries and any en­ti­ties that fall un­der them—of­fices, com­mis­sions, Par­lia­ment, the TTPS, as well as pen­sions and gra­tu­ities—the State paid at least $8.4 bil­lion in salaries and liv­ing al­lowances to per­ma­nent em­ploy­ees.

That al­so in­clud­ed pen­sions and gra­tu­ities, which ac­count­ed for more than $1.9 bil­lion.

Con­tract­ed em­ploy­ees were paid ap­prox­i­mate­ly $943.6 mil­lion, while ‘short-term’ em­ploy­ees re­ceived $240.2 mil­lion. In to­tal, the amounts added up to at least $9.58 bil­lion.

That fig­ure ac­count­ed for 20 per cent of all Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment ex­pen­di­ture in 2024 ($48.3 bil­lion), mean­ing that for every $5 spent by the State, ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1 was spent to pay a gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ee.

The three most cost­ly gov­ern­ment en­ti­ties, in terms of salaries and liv­ing al­lowances, were the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry, $3.2 bil­lion; the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry, $1.44 bil­lion; and the TTPS, $1.35 bil­lion.

In fis­cal 2023, the Gov­ern­ment spent a to­tal of $57.23 bil­lion, of which $32.63 bil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed to trans­fers and sub­si­dies.

Trans­fers and sub­si­dies are non-re­payable pay­ments made by gov­ern­ments to or­gan­i­sa­tions, busi­ness­es, and in­di­vid­u­als for spe­cif­ic pur­pos­es, of­ten to pro­mote so­cial and eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy such as wel­fare ben­e­fits and gas sub­si­dies.

While the ma­jor­i­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tive union for pub­lic ser­vice work­ers, the PSA, has agreed terms with the State, there are sev­er­al oth­er unions rep­re­sent­ing pub­lic work­ers who have out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions.

The Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) is an um­brel­la or­gan­i­sa­tion rep­re­sent­ing sev­er­al of the unions with out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions. Ac­cord­ing to NATUC Pres­i­dent Michael An­nis­sette, there are around 17,000 gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ees with out­stand­ing salary ne­go­ti­a­tions, among them:

- As many as 1,500 Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go work­ers, via the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers Trade Union (SWW­TU), are still wait­ing for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the agreed 12 per cent in­crease for the 2014 to 2017 pe­ri­od.

- 100 month­ly-paid work­ers of the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs (IMA) have ne­go­ti­a­tions out­stand­ing for the pe­ri­od 2012 to 2027.

- More than 1,500 dai­ly-rat­ed Lo­cal and Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment work­ers, as well as THA work­ers, have out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions from 2017 to 2026.

- Port of Point Lisas month­ly work­ers and su­per­vi­so­ry staff for the pe­ri­od 2023 to 2026.

- 854 Dai­ly-rat­ed ter­mi­nal work­ers with out­stand­ing col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ments for 2024 to 2027.

- Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers Union (CWU) – Ac­cord­ing to Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer, Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) work­ers have not re­ceived salary in­creas­es since 2019.

- The Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) – Ac­cord­ing to Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al Christo­pher Streete, whose union rep­re­sents 17,000 dai­ly rat­ed work­ers, they hope to join the bar­gain­ing ta­ble for the two pe­ri­ods be­tween 2014 and 2019 af­ter the PSA’s agree­ment with the state. The union re­ject­ed a five per cent of­fer from then Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert in 2024.

- T&T Reg­is­tered Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTR­BA) – Pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art said ne­go­ti­a­tions have been out­stand­ing since 2013.

In 2023, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) (2014 to 2016 and 2017 to 2019), rep­re­sent­ing po­lice of­fi­cers, and the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) (2020 to 2023), rep­re­sent­ing teach­ers, ac­cept­ed the state’s four and five per cent of­fers un­der the PNM.

Be­fore that, in 2022, the De­fence Force ac­cept­ed five per cent for 2020 to 2022.

In De­cem­ber 2024, the T&T Air­line Pi­lots’ As­so­ci­a­tion set­tled on four per cent for the 2020 to 2023 pe­ri­od.

In ear­ly 2025, the Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Trade Union (2014 to 2016 & 2017 to 2019) set­tled, but ac­cord­ing to Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al Er­mine De Bique Mead, the agree­ments have not been ho­n­oured.

The Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers’ Union had set­tled on four per cent for the pe­ri­od 2014 to 2019, be­fore ac­cept­ing five per cent for 2020 to 2022 in ear­ly 2025.

The Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion al­so ac­cept­ed four per cent in 2023 (2014 to 2016 and 2017 to 2019), but last week Pres­i­dent Ger­ard Gor­don called for new ne­go­ti­a­tions for out­stand­ing pe­ri­ods fol­low­ing the PSA’s agree­ment.

State en­ter­prise trou­bles

Many of the state en­ter­pris­es for which pub­lic ser­vice em­ploy­ees work have been plagued by fi­nan­cial or au­dit is­sues for some time.

Ac­cord­ing to the Re­view of the Econ­o­my 2024, trans­fers to State En­ter­pris­es were an­tic­i­pat­ed to be ap­prox­i­mate­ly $3.5 bil­lion.

“State En­ter­pris­es in re­ceipt of large trans­fers from the State in­clude: Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed (UDe­COTT), Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NPMC), Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NID­CO) and Caribbean Air­lines Lim­it­ed (CAL).

“Con­tribut­ing to the in­creased ex­pen­di­ture in this cat­e­go­ry were high­er trans­fers to UDe­COTT and NID­CO to fa­cil­i­tate main­ly pay­ments for debt ser­vice as well as sub­si­dies for the op­er­a­tions of the Wa­ter Taxi Ser­vice and the in­ter-is­land fer­ries,” it said.

T&TEC – In Oc­to­ber, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath re­vealed that T&TEC owned NGC $8 bil­lion.

Caribbean Air­lines Lim­it­ed – CAL has re­port­ed­ly spent $60 mil­lion on au­dits, but has not sub­mit­ted an au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ment to the Min­istry of Fi­nance since 2015. Ear­li­er this year, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar gave CAL two years to “get its house in or­der” or face a ma­jor over­haul.

CEPEP – Be­fore be­ing shut down by the gov­ern­ment, CEPEP failed to pro­vide au­dits for as much as $1.5 bil­lion.

Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions – It was re­port­ed in 2024 by Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wantie Ram­dass that 92 fi­nan­cial state­ments from re­gion­al/lo­cal-gov­ern­ment cor­po­ra­tions have not been sub­mit­ted for au­dit, with es­ti­mat­ed un­ver­i­fied spend­ing of $23 bil­lion.

Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed – UDe­COTT has not pub­lished an au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ment since 2021.

Co­coa De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny of T&T – In March 2022, Chair­man Jaque­line Rawl­ins said if the com­pa­ny’s fi­nan­cial cri­sis con­tin­ued, it would not sur­vive the cal­en­dar year. Ear­li­er this year, the gov­ern­ment an­nounced an in­vest­ment of around US$6 mil­lion to try and turn its for­tunes around.

Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed – Dur­ing a pub­lic ac­counts com­mit­tee in No­vem­ber 2023, it was re­port­ed that EM­BD faced un­der­staffing and chal­lenges with time­ly sub­mis­sion of au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments. There were prob­lems with the cre­ation of an In­ter­nal Au­dit and Pro­cure­ment Unit.

Evolv­ing Tec­knolo­gies and En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed – Eteck last pro­duced a fi­nan­cial au­dit state­ment in 2022.

Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self-Help Lim­it­ed – Cit­ing a fi­nan­cial cri­sis, the UNC gov­ern­ment re­as­signed the Com­mis­sion to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter ear­li­er this year.

Na­tion­al En­tre­pre­neur­ship De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed – In ear­ly 2023, an ex­am­i­na­tion of its ac­counts found that the com­pa­ny paid out $66 mil­lion in “bad loans” for the pe­ri­od 2016-2017 and $94 mil­lion be­tween 2008 and 2014. Its di­rec­tor said the loans may have to be writ­ten off.

Na­tion­al Quar­ries Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed – Au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments from 2020 showed large cur­rent li­a­bil­i­ties and neg­a­tive share­hold­er eq­ui­ty.

Pa­lo Seco Agri­cul­tur­al En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed & Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny of T&T Lim­it­ed – Iden­ti­fied among state en­ter­pris­es that have not sub­mit­ted an­nu­al re­turns to the Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs.

The Ve­hi­cle Man­age­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T Lim­it­ed – Has re­port­ed sig­nif­i­cant debt over many years, in­clud­ing $91 mil­lion in loss­es in fis­cal 2020.

TTT Lim­it­ed – TTT last sub­mit­ted fi­nan­cial au­dit­ed state­ments for fis­cal 2018.

Na­tion­al He­li­copter Ser­vices Lim­it­ed – Re­port­ed sig­nif­i­cant loss­es in re­cent years, in­clud­ing $86.5 mil­lion in 2018.

Na­tion­al En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed – Re­port­ed a loss of $348.7 mil­lion for fis­cal 2024 and a loss of $455.1 mil­lion in fis­cal 2023.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T – UTT has re­port­ed­ly faced sig­nif­i­cant debts. Its debts was es­ti­mat­ed to be as high as $20 mil­lion ear­li­er this year.

How­ev­er, not all state en­ter­pris­es faced fi­nan­cial trou­ble, with some ex­celling, most no­tably: Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, which re­port­ed an af­ter tax prof­it of $940 mil­lion in fis­cal 2024, and the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny, which re­port­ed an af­ter tax prof­it of $1.6 bil­lion in fis­cal 2024.

(BOX)

Dis­pute over back­pay

Last week, Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed a dis­pute be­tween the PSA and Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Dr Daryl Din­di­al over how $3.8 bil­lion in back­pay should be paid.

While an ad­vance pay­ment will be is­sued in cash on or be­fore De­cem­ber 23, the re­main­der of the back pay may be of­fered through non-cash op­tions.

PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas has pub­licly ac­cused the CPO of block­ing the pay­ments and la­belled him the“Chief Per­son­nel Ob­struc­tion­ist” in so­cial me­dia posts.

Din­di­al re­spond­ed that the PSA’s in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the agree­ment does not re­flect the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion and non-cash op­tions were al­ways part of the dis­cus­sions.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo al­so sug­gest­ed the union might have to con­sid­er non-cash arrange­ments for the re­main­der.

How­ev­er, the PSA Pres­i­dent in­sist­ed it must be cash.

The ten per­cent agree­ment came a year af­ter for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley ac­cept­ed the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion’s rec­om­men­da­tion to in­crease the salaries of the most se­nior pub­lic of­fi­cials.

Em­ploy­ees strug­gle to make ends meet

Over the past week, Guardian Me­dia spoke with sev­er­al pub­lic sec­tor em­ploy­ees to get their per­spec­tive on what life is like on their cur­rent salaries.

Their names were changed to pro­tect their iden­ti­ties.

Robert – $5,045 per month ($5,549 af­ter in­crease):

“I am a Clerk (Range 14). Hon­est­ly, we are treat­ed very well and paid fair­ly for what we do, even be­fore get­ting the raise. How­ev­er, I am 21 years old, and my mom isn’t too healthy, so I run the house fi­nan­cial­ly. Ends are def­i­nite­ly be­ing met, but just that. Can’t re­al­ly do much more than that right now, but at least with the raise, things would be bet­ter.

“I can’t re­al­ly go out much. I don’t own a car at the mo­ment, and sav­ing up is def­i­nite­ly go­ing to take some time, but we are get­ting by. I can’t say that I have to go hun­gry. It’s def­i­nite­ly way bet­ter than pre­vi­ous jobs I’ve got­ten in the pri­vate sec­tor.

“Job se­cu­ri­ty is def­i­nite­ly a key fac­tor and hon­est­ly, all the com­plaints I hear at work about peo­ple say­ing gov­ern­ment work­ers don’t do any­thing, my re­sponse to them is that it is most­ly true. The work is spread across a lot more peo­ple than your av­er­age pri­vate com­pa­ny. We don’t get paid as much as big­ger pri­vate en­ti­ties, but for the lit­tle amount of work we get com­pared to the pri­vate sec­tor, it’s fair.”

Can­dice – Clerk I For More Than 15 years – $5,045 per month ($5,549 af­ter in­crease):

“Even though I have been act­ing in high­er po­si­tions, the act­ing pay­ments are un­fair. There are so many hor­ror sto­ries of pay­ments that take years to get ap­proved, and then there’s the pay­ment done in a lump sum and heav­i­ly taxed.

“As a sin­gle par­ent, es­pe­cial­ly while my child was very young, it was very chal­leng­ing to make ends meet. Af­ford­ing qual­i­ty food has been dif­fi­cult, and I’ve had to man­age the con­stant in­creas­es in util­i­ties, which are es­sen­tial for both work and my child’s ed­u­ca­tion.

“One bless­ing is that I don’t have to pay rent, as I moved back in with my par­ents af­ter my di­vorce. I have been the pri­ma­ry fi­nan­cial sup­port­er for my child through­out this time, and with­out my par­ents’ sup­port, I gen­uine­ly don’t know how we would have man­aged.

“It has been a rough ex­pe­ri­ence, but I re­main grate­ful to God for the strength to push through and for the sup­port sys­tem that helped us sur­vive.”

Son­ja – Tem­po­rary Min­istry Clerk I for more than ten years – $5,045 per month ($5,549 af­ter in­crease):

“As a moth­er of three, if I were to sole­ly de­pend on my gov­ern­ment salary, my chil­dren would not be af­ford­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ties, lifestyle and even some of their needs for dai­ly liv­ing.

“I have 13 years of ser­vice in the gov­ern­ment sec­tor, still tem­po­rary, and have faced fluc­tu­a­tions and act­ing po­si­tions. Present­ly, in my Min­istry, we have not been re­ceiv­ing act­ing due to the re­align­ment of the Min­istry. If I did not have the sup­port of my hus­band, I would have been ex­treme­ly frus­trat­ed and stressed quite of­ten.

“At­tempt­ing to pro­vide as many op­por­tu­ni­ties for my chil­dren as it per­tains to aca­d­e­mics and ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties alone is where 90 per cent of my fi­nances go. Oth­er con­tribut­ing strug­gles and stress­es, such as the time we have to leave home and re­turn, as we live in the east and com­mute to Port-of-Spain is a sig­nif­i­cant con­trib­u­tor and ad­di­tion­al fac­tor to stress lev­els.

“Since the pre­vi­ous Prime Min­is­ter’s ad­vo­ca­cy of belt-tight­en­ing and hold­ing out for wage ne­go­ti­a­tions, I be­lieved in the process. I was will­ing to sac­ri­fice a pe­ri­od for a fair gain in the long run… but when that re­sult­ed in no de­liv­er­ance, it was ab­solute­ly de­mo­ti­vat­ing.

“This present pro­pos­al and ap­proval of salary in­crease do not ac­cu­rate­ly rep­re­sent what the pub­lic ser­vants are owed. In my opin­ion, what was of­fered is just to paci­fy pub­lic ser­vants who have grown des­per­ate for any­thing that re­sem­bles a wage in­crease. Yes, there’s a lev­el of grat­i­tude for it, but when you thor­ough­ly ex­am­ine what is of­fered, es­pe­cial­ly for the length of time, it is in­suf­fi­cient to meet so­ci­etal de­mands.”

Maris­sa – Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry em­ploy­ee:

“Fi­nan­cial­ly, it’s hard, and with­out a sec­ond source of in­come, I wouldn’t be able to sur­vive. It’s tir­ing work­ing on such a small salary in 2025. We show up and de­liv­er de­spite the fi­nan­cial cir­cum­stances.

“It will be great to re­ceive the in­crease, as we’ve been work­ing on the same salary since 2013.”

Sharmil­la – Min­istry em­ploy­ee:

“I would say every­day life has been a chal­lenge for us. For those who have a part­ner to share the load with, we man­age to get through. This salary al­lows us to get by, but it doesn’t give us the chance to en­joy the nicer things in life, un­less you drown in cred­it.

“I don’t think the last gov­ern­ment had giv­en us a fair chance, on­ly for them­selves, when gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials on­ly got pay in­creas­es, not the pub­lic ser­vants who ac­tu­al­ly do the job.

“This new rate gives hope of a bet­ter life.”