Police Minister Says a Salary Cut is Fair in Light of Burgeoning Wage Bill

Kareem Musa

At a U.S. Embassy event this afternoon, Minister Kareem Musa was asked about the government’s decision to forge ahead with the public service pay cut.  Minister Musa says that the decision was a tough one and it pains him to tell his employees, like police officers, that they must do this.  He says that it is a fair decision taken in light of the other options that were tossed around. Here’s how he explains it.

Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs

“It is certainly not the kind of news that anybody wants to deliver in government; not myself as the minister of home affairs. I am certain it is not an easy decision for the Prime Minister to make. But the truth of the matter is that we have been forewarned about this economic crisis that we are in from the last Prime Minister and even the leader of the opposition intimated to the fact, prior to the election, that retrenchment, not salary cut, was a huge possibility and they would have to somehow merge those in the public sector into private sector work. I don’t know how they would do that magically because that doesn’t happen overnight. So, there has always been this talk whether retrenchment or salary cut or any other type of mechanism to prove that we are making inroads when it comes to our very huge wage bill.  I think it is universally accepted whether you are U.D.P. or P.U.P., I think everyone can accept that our wage bill is extremely excessive.  It is a difficult decision – one that no government would want to have to make but in all the circumstances we are not talking retrenchment, we are talking a salary cut and so I think in all the circumstances, it is as fair as possible as we can get at this time.”