The reason I got into government was to help people, particularly, those who need government the most, and that is poor and vulnerable. I will not be in government, I will not hold the office of Prime Minister if a decision to deal with one (1) sector of the society results in getting rid of opportunities for the majority of people of Grenada Carriacou and Petite Martinique.
Those words came from Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell as he expressed concern over the implications of the March 29 High Court ruling handed down by Justice Raulston Glasgow in favour of pension for civil servants that can cost the Treasury millions of dollars.
Addressing a meeting in St. Patrick, Dr. Mitchel told the gathering: “I am making it very clear…I would not be the Prime Minister, I will not be in government if it means hurting those who need us the most. So, we need to work together. So, we have signaled that we will sit with our trade union brothers and sisters because we understand the plight of the workers.”
Justice Glasgow has ruled that the Pension Disqualification Act that was passed by the 1979-83 left-leaning People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG) of late Prime Minister Maurice Bishop was null and void and unconstitutional.
The ruling in effect recognised the Constitutional pension that was provided for public officers when Grenada attained its independence from Great Britain on February 7, 1974.
The PRG had suspended the Constitution when it seized power in a 1979 coup d’etat against the elected Eric Gairy government and created the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) in 1983 to provide a pension for public sector workers.
Under the Pensions Disqualification Act, workers who were employed with the government after 1985, only qualified for the contributory NIS pensions and not a non-contributory state pension.
If the government, which is currently analysing the financial, and other implications, accepts the ruling, it will be obligated to make retroactive pension payments to retirees who have been denied pensions for almost four (4) decades.
Dr. Mitchell, who continues to give mixed signals to whether the government will file an appeal within the allowed 42-days, is adamant that the verdict in court is not something for anyone to gloat about.
“What are you celebrating? My Friends, let me tell you this, the cost of this if we have to pay it could be over EC$1.2 billion (and) that’s more than the budget of the country. So, where the money coming from, where all that money coming from?
“It means if we have to meet this responsibility just like this, all of us would have to fork up a few dollars to meet it you know, even those that ain’t working have to pay for this,” PM Mitchell told the meeting.
He said while, “we (the government) understand the plight of the workers, we (also) have to be balanced (and) careful. Because if we decide that is what we must do, and there is no understanding how we will do it you know what would happen, we would have to send all the IMANI home, cut back even the public service – we would have to send people home…”
In addition, he said that a lot of the initiatives of the Ministry of Agriculture in helping the farmers “we will have to cut that back, we would have to give cutbacks in almost every area sisters and brothers.”
PM Mitchell is hoping that an agreement can be reached for a pension payout plan with public sector unions that will not impose additional fiscal burden on the state.
Addressing perceptions that his government will appeal the ruling during an event in Dunfermline, St. Andrew to launch NNP caretaker candidates for St. Andrew North-east, Kate Lewis-Peters, and St. Andrew North-west,Delma Thomas on Sunday, PM Mitchell warned supporters to “don’t listen to any propaganda” regarding the government’s approach to the ruling, and promised that “the solutions we have, you will be informed.”
Permanent Secretary in the Department of Public Administration (DPA) Rhonda Jones sought to bring into focus the fiscal liability challenges now facing the Mitchell-led government in St. George’s to pay outstanding pensions to civil servants, when she appeared as a guest on the Grenada Broadcasting Network (GBN) Beyond the Headlines programme on Monday night.
Noting that “from the very beginning, this discussion has always been about fiscal sustainability of the 1958 provisions, and by extension the ability of the government to afford such pension plans, she explained that with fiscal sustainability a main focus for the ruling administration coming out of the structural adjustment programme in 2016 is that a pension payout scheme “must comply” with the “rules that have been introduced to ensure that there is fiscal prudence in the management of the affairs of the state.”
She was referring to the International Monetary Fund-recommended Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), under which some aspects have been suspended last October for a second successive year through the invocation of what is referred to as an ‘Escape Clause,’ that was first triggered in December 2020 due to COVID-19, as a measure to increase the government’s spending efficiencies, without complying with the mandate of certain clauses within the Act.
PS Jones pointed out that while “the imposition of these rules are hard constraint, and we do need to accept this in any discussion,” although the rules have been suspended “they will not be suspended definitely.”
Stating that “the public service has grown exponentially” since the implementation of the fiscal rules, she emphasised that “the issue of how can we sustain an affordable pension plan scheme will be the central issue on the table around which we have to explore the options.”
According to PS Jones, the government requires sufficient time to analyse the data for public officers, including payments owed to the first cohort of retirees in 2012, salary increases for officers from 1985, and preparations also have to be “made for the active employees who would be retiring in one (1) year, two (2) years and three(3) years from today.”
“So, the modeling have to take account of these three (3) subsets of retirees, and active employees that we have to cater for in the immediate. So that is why we are taking the time to ensure that we get our numbers right. So, we have already complied data on the exits from the public service. We are well aware of the monthly carrying commitments of the government in relation to wages and salaries, and now we have to take account of the persons who have since retired…”
However, former Attorney General Jimmy Bristol, who headed the legal team that represented the public sector trade unions in the landmark pension issue before the high court, holds the view that because this is an election year “the timing of this judgement is critical, and could not have come at a better time for public officers, and for Grenadians to ensure that the order of the court are obeyed, respected and the constitution is upheld…”
Bristol described the government’s position that the pension ruling poses “deep and serious implications for the viability of the state,” as “a manipulation of news to create a false narrative to justify their future conduct”.
“I think they should be ashamed and, I am not afraid to say that they should be ashamed. I think from the Prime Minister down because he is the ultimate decision maker. Terrible conduct Mr. Mitchell. Terrible.”
Bristol contended that it is “the government’s problem to find the money (because) they knew all along that this law was in effect, and they kept denying it despite the several rulings, and particularly, the Court of Appeal ruling in the Mc Queen (case) which was back in 1998.”
He noted that it has been 24 years since the Mc Queen judgement and “they (the government) could have been putting the money aside but they didn’t do that.
And, what’s worse is that they have taken taxpayers money, the money of the very civil servants, and you and me, to hire lawyers to fight this case, and they lose – they don’t have to dip into their pockets to put that money back into the Consolidated Fund but the unions representing these people would have had to dip into its pockets to defend the matter and not get anything back,” he said.
“Fortunately the legal team did this pro bono because of the importance of this matter…they can spend our money to come, and argue these matters for us to vindicate our rights, so, in essence they (are) using (our) money against ourselves – it’s terrible,” he remarked.
Bristol went on: “The government is being very disingenuous to the extreme…I think the reason they are talking about meeting with the unions, and disavowing what I have been told about an indication of an intention to appeal, is because we are in an election year, and the civil service will be in uproar…it won’t be in their interest to appeal because it is going to backfire.”
The Political Leader of the main opposition National Democratic Congress. (NDC) Dickon Mitchell has also chipped in on the issue, saying that the public workers fight for pension is also the struggle of contract workers to become permanent.
“So, for our contract workers, I want you to understand the struggle of the public workers to be paid a pension is also your struggle…the fight for you to become permanent is the same fight of the public workers to get their pension because if you are not a permanent worker you will never get a pension,” said the 44 year-old Congress Leader to party supporters at a meeting at Carlton Junction in St. Andrew.
The meeting was held to launch four (4) candidates for the upcoming general election – Lennox Andrew for St. Andrew South-west, David Andrews – St. Andrew South-east, Senator Tessa St. Cyr for St. Andrew North-east and Gloria Thomas for St. Andrew North-west.
Dickon Mitchell told Congress supporters: “The law in Grenada says if the job you are doing is a job that is permanently associated with the establishment you work in that after three (3) months you are going to be made permanent once you pass your probation, and therefore you are entitled to work for an indefinite period.
So, when you are placed on 3 months, 6 months, 12 months contracts it is unlawful, illegal and if it is going to take another High Court judgement to say that the government of Grenada cannot treat its citizens that way by breaking the law then so be it.”
The NDC leader disclosed that his party “does not, and will not support an appeal” of the pension judgement and that the “pension must be paid.”