There was an article on Tuesday’s regional pages in which Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne called for higher salaries for himself and other cabinet members. He said they were
underpaid and used as example Anguilla, where government ministers supposedly receive EC $21,000 monthly, which translates to roughly US $7,778 or NAf. 13,000 per month.
The story is interesting, because many people, including politicians in the Netherlands, seem to think particularly parliamentarians in St. Maarten earn too much. Browne also pointed out that his country’s legislators make about US $10,000 per month and obviously wants public administrators to have a similar amount in light of their considerable responsibilities.
Coincidentally, United People’s (UP) party fraction member Tamara Leonard recently announced she would table a motion to reduce the pay for herself and other elected representatives during the ongoing 2016 budget debate (see Monday paper). Her idea was to bring it down from the current NAf. 19,000 (just over US $10,000) to the level in Curaçao of NAf. 12,000 (some US $7,000).
In itself the idea does not sound unsympathetic, but one has to wonder about the sense of such a proposal. After all, her colleagues are not likely to back it, as former Democratic Party (DP) stalwart Roy Marlin found out a few years ago.
He had placed a motion to the same effect with the general secretary so other Members of Parliament (MPs) at the time could endorse it quietly and avoid too much public discussion on this relatively sensitive issue. In the end it turned out he had been the only one to sign the draft motion, which consequently was discarded.
Perhaps MP Leonard is serious and has the best of intentions, but realistically speaking her suggestion does not have much chance of receiving the required majority support. Especially legislators whose chance of returning after the September 26 elections may not so big will probably be hesitant to lower their earnings at this point.
As stated in this column before, it’s not so much what parliamentarians and ministers make, but rather what they do for it. Ensuring quality in government and its administration is not cheap, as Antigua’s leader of government apparently reasoned. The saying “you get what you pay for” should also be kept in mind.
