Davies says some retired MPs were living on the edge
FINANCE Minister Omar Davies said Saturday that many retired parliamentarians were teetering on the poverty line, which he said was a result of the small wages they were paid for their service to the country, as he sought to justify the recent 100 per cent wage increase to parliamentarians.
“I can tell you as fact that there are retiring members of parliament, if they never got that back pay they would be guaranteed to move into poverty. The reality is people is that it is no big, big money,” Davies told a meeting of the People’s National Party’s South East St Andrew constituency.
The pay hike has been severely criticised by a number of Jamaicans, some of whom felt they have been shortchanged by government who have made repeated requests for them to tighten their belts in harsh economic times. Davies spoke to the popular sentiment by remarking, “I understand it. It is a dilemma.”
Davies said, however, that in order for elected representatives to be efficient in carrying out their duties then they needed to be adequately paid.
“We are facing a crisis in the civil service. You not going to get people of the requisite quality to do the work for that money,” Davies said.
He also had some financial advice to his colleague member of parliament, Maxine Henry-Wilson, who had invited him to speak to her constituents at the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica auditorium in Kingston.
“I hope Maxine, that not one cent of your little salary goes into the constituency. I am going to warn you. It is a dangerous thing. It compromises you and it makes you bitter. I’ll get someone to manage you and to take your pay and give you an allowance. I don’t spend a cent of my salary in the constituency. I couldn’t afford it”.
The finance minister also argued that the society needed to cease looking at politicians as dishonest persons who join the profession to line their pockets.
“I can tell what Prime Minister (PJ) Patterson would make doing half the work as a legal luminary right now. I could tell you what K D Knight (foreign minister) would be making. These are not people who don’t have anything else they could do, these are people who are making a sacrifice and I think the society needs to start respecting and recognising this rather than seeing us as a set of bandits who do not have anything else to do,” said Davies.