Workers may have to wait for pay hike

By ALISON ANIS

 

PUBLIC servants anticipating a pay increase may have to wait until the Department of Personnel Management (DPM) and Industrial Relations Division (IRD), the two bodies tasked to look after public service payouts, sort out the implementation of the 18% increase announced by the national government last year, The National reports.

Officers from DPM and IRC are at loggerheads over certain responsibilities regarding the implementation of the pay increase for public servants.

DPM when contacted last Friday reported that it was IRD’s responsibility and that they were waiting for information from IRD before they could advice on the status of the payments.

Internal Relations on the other hand commented that no step had been taken to address the issue because they have not received any instructions from the secretary’s office.

“Our office has been bombarded with phone calls from public servants wanting to know when the increase will come into place,” a staff from IRD told The National.

“We told them that we cannot advise until we have received directions from the secretary’s office regarding pay increase. Right now there is nothing to implement because we have not received any instructions from the secretary.”

The DPM secretary was reportedly on leave and could not be contacted to give an update on the proposed pay increments.

An officer from DPM said IRD was the appropriate body to deal with the pay increments.

“Call the IRD, they are the appropriate division.  We don’ have that kind of information our desk,” a senior officer with DPM said then asked to give an update on the situation.

A senior public servant has raised concerns about  the delayed increments stressing that he had not seen any changes in his fortnightly wages.

 “The minister promised us the increase last year and this was budgeted for 2011. Pay 1 for Jan has begun but nothing has been done yet. Why is it taking so long to bring into effect the increase since leaders are able to easily increase their payment by 52%?” he said.