Will Public Officer Get Back Their Increments By April 1st?

Francis Fonseca

Cabinet met on Thursday for a special meeting to discuss the 2023/2024 budget. A major point of discussion has been the joint union’s demand to have their increments unfrozen by April first. Now, the Briceño Administration has committed to unfreeze those increments during the upcoming fiscal year. But, the question still remains, will it be done by the end of March. Here is what Minister Fonseca told us.

Francis Fonseca, Ministry of Education

“As you know, we have a follow up meeting with the unions on March second I believe, next week Thursday. We have taken their points of concern back to the Cabinet. We had a discussion about it yesterday. We had a special Cabinet meeting to discuss the budget and as a part of that discussion we discussed these issues. We will have another Cabinet meeting on Tuesday where we will have a follow up discussions and decision on these matters. So that when we go back to the table with the joint unions next week Thursday we will be in a position to say to them where we stand and hear from them. We have always said in relation to pension reform that is not something we will solve over night. But we certainly want to start the discussion and have in place some framework to move forward down that road. It is very unsustainable, everyone knows that. The issue of increments is critically important. We have already said on record that we are going unfreeze increment during this fiscal year. It is just a question of when we can do that in terms of the financial situation. The unions obviously want it on April first. That has been the discussion.”