There’s no gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy at this time to have a pay cut for MPs. How­ev­er, some on the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion sides have been help­ing con­stituents and will con­tin­ue do­ing so.

But a call has been made for politi­cians plus those from dif­fer­ent sec­tors–suc­cess­ful busi­ness­es and com­pa­ny man­age­ments–to take a pay cut and chan­nel the mon­ey to a spe­cial fund to as­sist those in hard­ship.

In 2020 New Zealand Prime Min­is­ter Jacin­da Ardern’s team took 20 per cent pay cuts. In Oc­to­ber 2020, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar called for a five per cent pay cut for MPs. She had in­struct­ed op­po­si­tion mem­bers to take more steps to­ward sup­port­ing those in need dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. Re­cent­ly PNM To­co MP Roger Munroe in­di­cat­ed he will be de­vot­ing three month’s salary to help­ing the less for­tu­nate in his area.

While some, up to last week, called for politi­cians to take pay cuts, MSJ leader David Ab­du­lah said it could al­so ap­ply to suc­cess­ful busi­ness­es and man­age­ments and oth­ers and go to­wards a spe­cial fund to help peo­ple.

"It will be a good op­por­tu­ni­ty for lead­ers in all sec­tors of T&T to set a good ex­am­ple and show they’re tru­ly aware of peo­ple’s hard­ship. Gov­ern­ment’s talked of things like re­con­sid­er­ing tax con­ces­sions on cars for par­lia­men­tar­i­ans. Here’s an op­por­tu­ni­ty for every­one able, to con­tribute. Some sec­tors have come through this pan­dem­ic suc­cess­ful­ly."

On whether their plans for the Gov­ern­ment to take a pay cut–or for MPs to do as Munroe, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Symon de No­bre­ga said there was no of­fi­cial po­si­tion on pay cuts, “MP Munroe has tak­en a cer­tain po­si­tion, but I’m sure every sin­gle MP is con­tribut­ing in dif­fer­ent ways from their per­son­al in­come.’’

There were no replies from Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley and Min­is­ters Colm Im­bert, Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, Faris Al-Rawi, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, Amery Browne, Stu­art Young and Allyson West.

Plan­ning Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is said "I en­sure my con­stituents ben­e­fit from all that the Gov­ern­ment has avail­able and in our con­stituen­cy we’ve en­sured that in ad­di­tion to these ham­pers our par­ty groups and oth­er peo­ple in­clud­ing me as MP and busi­ness­es in the area have gen­er­ous­ly en­sured that peo­ple who are re­al­ly in need are tak­en care of.

"We haven’t had any who are in that po­si­tion thank­ful­ly. So I con­tin­ue as­sist­ing my con­stituents as I can through my means and the gen­eros­i­ty of my staff and oth­er well-mean­ing peo­ple. My hus­band and I al­so give out month­ly tithes to con­stituents and for my birth­day on May 12, I gave 50 ham­pers to con­stituents. How­ev­er, I didn’t see the need to pub­li­cise it."

Labour Min­is­ter Stephen Mc­Clashie said, "There’s no gov­ern­ment po­si­tion at this time. I’ll con­tin­ue sup­port­ing my con­stituents as I've been do­ing out­side of the glare of cam­eras and the me­dia. Per­son­al help and char­i­ty to those in need is a pri­vate mat­ter."

The UNC ear­li­er this year re­newed calls for the pub­lic to as­sist its dri­ve to help those in need. MPs’ of­fices re­ceive re­quests dai­ly since 2020 "and it con­tin­ues and we (in Op­po­si­tion) all con­tin­ue the help, we give peo­ple," said UNC MP Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo.

"Munroe’s ac­tion is very late. Is he now aware? Peo­ple suf­fer­ing since last year. Who wasn’t hit by the virus was hit by fi­nan­cial and eco­nom­ic prob­lems rolling in­to 2021. Peo­ple call us dai­ly, our MPs have been help­ing out of their own pock­et all the time."

UNC’s Roodal Mooni­lal was among those vol­un­teer­ing to help peo­ple in a re­cent Ex­press sto­ry on hard­ships. UNC deputy leader David Lee added, "We’re do­ing this on our own. We don’t need to boast, the peo­ple know we do."

UNC Sen­a­tor Damien Ly­der, a busi­ness­man who al­so aids peo­ple, said "Debt to GDP is ap­proach­ing 100 per cent, al­ready it’s in the high 80 per cent. We haven’t had un­em­ploy­ment sta­tis­tics since June 2019 from the CSO, but it doesn’t take an econ­o­mist to know work­ers are fac­ing the high­est lev­els of job­less­ness in a gen­er­a­tion."