Civil servants and pensioners in St. Kitts and Nevis should be paid a double salary in December.
Deputy Political Leader of the opposition St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP), Dr. Earl Asim Martin made the call at last week’s party press conference.
The call has met with wide support from members of the public with a male caller to Freedom 106.5 FM “Issues” programme pointing out that if Nevis’ Premier Hon. Vance Amory and his Deputy Premier Hon. Mark Brantley can be paid a double salary for each month, then civil servants and pensioners should be paid a double for the month of December.
The caller said it was instructive that the Government of Dr. Timothy Harris is setting up for the non-payment of a double salary by saying that it will not be fiscally prudent.
“Civil servants and pensioners should not accept this. If the government can find a salary for Premier Vance Amory and his Deputy Premier Mark Brantley a double salary every month for almost three years, they could afford to give public servants and pensioners a double salary for one month,” said the caller.
“There was money in the Treasury and the SIDF and several major projects to keep the economy growing,” said the caller, who pointed out that the IMF, the World Bank and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) all confirmed that the growth rate under the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) was around seven percent.
“Now it is a fact that it has declined. While I do not agree that it is in shambles, economic activity has definitely slowed, and the apologists need to light the fire under their Team Unity Government rather than to keep harping on the past,” the caller said.
“The government has to attract more foreign direct investment. They do not have any success to point to nothing of their own and they just keep taking credit for projects that were started under the previous St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party administration, like the Park Hyatt St. Kitts.
“They cannot do that. All those persons who worked down there, they know when they started working and they know that this present government cannot claim credit for that. Same with the other projects like the Ramada, Koi and the others,” he said.