By Halshane Burke
Ninety-five per cent of public sector workers have indicated their acceptance of the government's offer under the restructured public sector compensation regime.
This includes rank and file members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force.
Finance Minister Dr. Nigel Clarke says the agreement with the Jamaica Police Federation will be signed in short order.
"The government has now reached agreements with several other unions, bargaining groups and staff associations that allows the implementation to have either begun earlier or to shortly begin, and we anticipate... that before long, that number of 60,000 will become 105,000 government employees, or 95% of the public service, once we sign off with the rank and file members of the police who have written indicating the acceptance of the government’s offer," he shared.
The Finance Minister said the monies should hit the accounts of public sector workers before the start of the new financial year.
"It may not come on the 25th, clearly because a lot of agreements were just signed; some of them have been signed today, the day the 21st. But we will endeavour that the funds will leave the consolidated fund by the end of the month," he declared.
Dr. Clarke was closing the 2023/24 Budget Debate in the House of Representatives on Tuesday afternoon.
Among the groups that have agreed to the wage offer over the last two weeks are those representing District Constables, Doctors, Jamaica Fire Brigade, Legal Officers, Probation After Care Officers and Correctional Officers.
Dr. Clarke said considerable effort will be expended to ensure payroll systems can undertake the payments.
"We issue instructions to ministries, departments and agencies and through the Transformation Implementation Unit, perform quality control checks, but the payroll departments of the particular ministry, departments and agencies have an integral role and we'll be working to support them to ensure that the implementation we expect towards the end of this month goes as smooth as it possibly can given the late time frame of some of these agreements," said the minister.
