Public employees, teachers, members of the disciplined services, holders of constitutional offices, and government pensioners will all receive a retroactive 8% pay raise, according to President Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali.
The salaries of junior ranks in the police force, prison service, fire service, and certain categories of employees in the public healthcare system, such as nurses, interns, doctors, and other healthcare professionals, will be adjusted, according to President Ali’s announcement, and will be disclosed the following week.
On Thursday night, the president made the announcement in real time via his official Facebook page.
He emphasised how much the government valued the hard work of public sector workers in providing services to the people of Guyana and said that work would begin right away to make sure the increase was processed and paid to qualified workers with their December salaries.
Additionally, he mentioned that solutions will be developed and announced within the next week for the modification of compensation for a number of particular groups of public sector personnel.
“In the initial stage, these include positions in the police force, prison system, and fire department. In addition, he added, “a similar exercise is currently being carried out, and recommendations are being made in connection to certain categories of personnel in our public healthcare system, including nurses, interns, doctors, and other healthcare professionals.
These pledges by the government are in addition to a number of other actions taken since it took office in August 2020 with the purpose of raising the disposable earnings of public sector workers and Guyanese in general.
These include the payment of a 7% general increase in 2021, the restoration of one-month tax-free year-end bonuses to disciplined services totaling more than $1 billion annually, an increase of about 40% in the monthly old-age pension from $20,500 to $28,000, providing a total pension payout of more than $21 billion to senior citizens, and an increase of 55% in public assistance payments from $9,000 to $14,000 monthly, providing a total of more than $21 billion in payments to those in need.
Other notable incentives include the reinstatement of cash grants to parents of school-aged children, amounting to about $6 billion in direct cash transfers, and an increase in the minimum wage for employees of the private sector by 36% to $60,147, in accordance with the recommendations of the tripartite committee.
President Ali noted that these actions, along with others of a similar nature, “needless to say, augmented the many other steps taken by our government to remove the punitive taxes that had been imposed by APNU/AFC on electricity, water, medical and educational supplies, basic household necessities, and basic construction materials.”
The removal of the fuel excise tax, the capping of freight charges used in calculating import taxes, the provision of fertiliser and other forms of support to farmers to increase food production, and direct cash transfers to particularly vulnerable communities are just a few of the measures the government had put in place to lessen the effects of the rise in living costs.
The PPP/C government is still looking into measures to raise Guyanese incomes and make sure that everyone benefits from the significant developments happening all around the nation.
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