BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – OPPOSITION MP the Hon. Marcella Liburd and social commentator G. A. Dwyer Astaphan are on opposite sides of the coin, as it relates to the notion that Prime Minister Dr. Timothy Harris was forced or pressured into making a double salary payment for civil servants.
Prime Minister Harris made the announcement some evenings ago, noting that pensioners and auxiliary workers would also benefit from the increment which is to be paid on December 14, 2016.
While speaking with SKNVibes, the Hon. Liburd explained that since September of this year, Leader of the Opposition Dr. the Hon. Denzil Douglas had been calling for a double salary payment to be made. MP Liburd is of the view that this is one of the things that “forced” Dr. Harris to make the payment.
“We have in the Opposition taken up the strain and we have been consistently calling for double salary because, in going around town, we realise that the businesses were saying that things are really very slow. I spoke to food vendors who are saying they cook less now because they were taking home so much more of the food because of how slow things were. And speaking to persons personally, I know that people were under severe financial strain. So we thought that some injection is needed so that people can better cope, also so that small businesses can make a little money.”
Liburd said the Opposition was not altogether surprised when the announcement was made, “because we knew that the Government was under some amount of pressure in order to bring some relief to people because the sound and the voices got louder and louder and louder. And so now we have the Government giving double salary for Christmas”.
Astaphan, on the other hand, said the notion that the Opposition’s call for a double salary payment had influenced the Government in making that decision is a ridiculous one.
“That is primary school politics. At around that time of year you would hear that kind of jargon from Opposition politicians to give the impression if a double salary is given that it is because of them…to assume to themselves a power and an influence which they do not have.”
He also referred to the Opposition’s suggestion that the St. Kitts-Nevis economy is not performing as well as the Prime Minister said it is.
He suggested that Dr. Douglas could not in one breath (while he was Prime Minister) use the lack of performance of the economy as an excuse for not paying double salary and in another breath (now that Dr. Harris is Prime Minister) suggests that a double salary be paid, even if the economy is not performing as would have been hoped.
“They have been saying that the economy has not been performing well at all. And the very same Dr. Douglas has said during his time as Prime Minister, at times when the economy was not performing as well as everybody would have liked, his explanation would have been that the economy was not performing well enough. If he is saying now that the economy is not performing well, where is the logic in him trying to insist that the Government pays a double salary? Or is he giving a double talk?
“If they are saying it is not performing well, they should not expect a double salary to be paid unless, maybe, they don’t believe what they themselves are saying. Maybe they believe the economy is performing better that they would want people to believe. I am not taking sides on this. I am just responding to their comments and putting their comments in the context of what they have been saying since they have been in Opposition.”
Both Astaphan and Liburd however expressed that regardless of why the double salary is being paid, it is welcomed fiscal relief for the citizens of the St. Christopher and Nevis.
