PM Blames U.D.P. for Unsustainable Wage Bill

John Briceño

And, finally from inside the National Assembly chambers, Prime Minister Briceño sought to set the record straight about why the public service wage bill has become unsustainable. PM Briceño referred to the three salary increases for public officers that the U.D.P. administration approved over the past decade. PM Briceño went on to say that the U.D.P. administration in all these instances borrowed to maintain those salary increases.

Prime Minister John Briceño

“Every elections year you raise the salary of public officers even when our nation was in recession. You raise salaries in 2012. You raised salaries in 2015. And you raised salaries again in 2018. And in all instances, you were borrowing to pay those salaries. They bang the table when their predecessor came up here with fancy words and Greek mythology to cover up your gross incompetence. Using it as a distraction because you were incapable of growing revenues or the economy to match those increases and increments. It is U.D.P. cowardice, their sleight of hands, their shamelessly kicking the can down the road that has brought the entire nation to the brink of bankruptcy. When you advocated a positive outlook, what you really seek is a solution from your historic sins.  You want us to move the budget deficit, from the debt, from the depression, from the unemployment, from the corruption and bloated  contracts, from the refusal to enact the same reforms you now suddenly champion, without first establishing with the people what you bequeathed us. As we would say in Creole what you left for us to deal with.”