The salaries of Parliamentarians are too low.
So said St Clair ‘Major’ Leacock, Opposition Parliamentary Representative for Central Kingstown while in Parliament on October 3.
He was at the time debating the Pension for Members of the House of Assembly (Amendment) Bill.
“If you want to disagree with me outside there, that’s your business…I can get by in my life thank God for that because I have put myself in a position to qualify myself to where I am,” Leacock told Parliament.
The Bill seeks to amend the pension for members of the House of Assembly and ensures that the quantum of pension payable to retired members, regardless of the amount of time they spent as a Parliamentarian, will not be less than EC$2,000.
But according to Leacock, the salaries paid to opposition members of Parliament were low.
“The prime minister in citing the law about who gets one third, who gets one quarter, who gets 50 percent according to their graduation 9 years, 15 years, 15 years plus. If you look at this arithmetic, at least for those of us on this side of the House, even if we surpassed 15 years of service 50 percent of the basic salary will not take us to $2,000 pension. That’s a clear unadulterated fact,” the opposition parliamentarian said.
Members on the government side did not have to contend with the issue of low salaries because of their ministerial appointments, Leacock explained.
But it was revealed that in some instances, permanent secretaries are paid higher than ministers prompting Leacock to say that he believed that a member of Parliament ought not to have a salary less than a graduate.
“I am a graduate many times over, and my salary in the Parliament here…if you look at what is considered as a salary here, you will have to get down to a grade H whose salary is EC$34,000.”
Among civil servants under the grade H category included agricultural instructors, the assistant director of the Liberty Lodge Boys Training School, supervisors at customs etc.
“Those are the categories of people who members of Parliament also get the same salary,” Leacock said.
“We ought to be in a better position than that,” he continued.
Fundamentally, you could not have senators with a basic salary that is not even EC$3,000 a month, Leacock added.
“Salary review is not an easy thing, and it is more difficult when we try to take care of ourselves, and if we cannot take care of ourselves, then we cannot take care of the nation,” he contended.