The pres­i­dent ap­points the mem­bers of the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter and the Op­po­si­tion Leader. The SRC’s 120th re­port has rec­om­mend­ed hefty pay in­creas­es for all three, along with oth­er of­fices of our na­tion­al lead­er­ship, but pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence in most (if not all) of those of­fice­hold­ers has gone to hell in a hand­bas­ket.

That is the great­est prob­lem with the SRC’s most re­cent rec­om­men­da­tions. The tax­pay­ers dread pay­ing more to this elite group, many of whom are un­pop­u­lar politi­cians. If they were do­ing their jobs sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly, there would be much less up­roar. The SRC’s “job eval­u­a­tion ex­er­cise” and “com­pen­sa­tion sur­vey” with their “fair com­par­i­son with lev­els of re­mu­ner­a­tion paid with­in the pri­vate sec­tor” does not in­clude a “per­for­mance re­view of of­fice hold­ers.”

The Trin­bag­on­ian tax­pay­er wants val­ue for mon­ey and would not be­grudge a “pri­vate sec­tor” com­pen­sa­tion pack­age if they re­ceived req­ui­site rep­re­sen­ta­tion. In the pri­vate sec­tor, in­com­pe­tence and fail­ure get you fired, fast. Cit­i­zens con­sid­er the of­fices and the of­fice­hold­ers the same, and for some time now, re­cur­ring themes in the pub­lic’s eval­u­a­tion of them have in­clud­ed: “waste, mis­man­age­ment, and cor­rup­tion,” “dis­ap­point­ing gov­ern­ment,” “weak­est op­po­si­tion ever,” and “failed crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.”

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Suni­ty Ma­haraj has called for con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form to stop MPs from us­ing the Par­lia­ment to give them­selves rais­es. Our out­dat­ed Con­sti­tu­tion al­so on­ly al­lows the elec­torate to fire or hire some of these of­fice­hold­ers on a date de­ter­mined by the Prime Min­is­ter.

An­oth­er prob­lem is that too many of those be­ing pre­sent­ed to the elec­torate gain such op­por­tu­ni­ties via means that would make them un­e­lec­table if pub­li­cised. It is lit­tle won­der that they mis­be­have or un­der­per­form in pub­lic of­fice.

In­ter­est­ing­ly, the re­lease of the SRC’s re­port comes at a time when the haute cou­ture CPO tries to beat down sev­er­al unions at once. The De­fence Force, teach­ers, and uni­ver­si­ty lec­tur­ers are cur­rent­ly en­gaged in col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing strug­gles while the In­dus­tri­al Court has or­dered port work­ers to end their strike.

It is doubt­ful that these and oth­er wage ne­go­ti­a­tions will be sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly re­solved be­fore GE2025. Many of these union mem­bers are call­ing for the SRC to as­sess their con­tri­bu­tions in­stead of the CPO! Or per­haps the CPO could ap­ply his ra­tio­nale in de­ter­min­ing what pay raise those in na­tion­al lead­er­ship might de­serve. I won­der if they would be hap­py with four per cent?

Re­gard­less, the last time the SRC re­port’s rec­om­men­da­tions were adopt­ed was in 2013 when I was an MP and min­is­ter in then-prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment. Af­ter her, PM Row­ley hasn’t dared to lift any politi­cian’s salary, and it is un­like­ly that he will dur­ing this elec­tion year. Re­gard­less of who wins, look out for those pay in­creas­es along with mil­lion-dol­lar back pay post-GE2025.

The re­cur­rent theme of the bro­ken crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem reared up last week to show the ug­ly un­der­bel­ly of the TTPS. Twelve po­lice of­fi­cers charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice, con­spir­a­cy, and ex­tor­tion in two cas­es did not even have to de­fend them­selves due to the ab­sence of pros­e­cu­tors, wit­ness­es, and oth­er fail­ures to com­ply with court process­es and in­struc­tions.

Is it all in­ten­tion­al and or­ches­trat­ed? It is in the in­ter­est of those named of­fi­cers who are iden­ti­fi­able in a wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ing video to de­fend their names in court. Their col­leagues who may have ob­struct­ed jus­tice by their no-show must be called to an­swer as well. Have the PCA and the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice found out how the PSB dropped the ball? The PolSC’s re­cent sur­vey on “pub­lic trust, con­fi­dence, and sat­is­fac­tion” in the TTPS has to be torn up. I think it has plum­met­ed fur­ther.

Who are the peo­ple re­spon­si­ble for this? The SRC has like­ly rec­om­mend­ed pay in­creas­es for them. I missed the com­ments from pow­er­ful in­di­vid­u­als like Chief Jus­tice Archie, head of the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion Is­rael Khan, SC, DPP Roger Gas­pard et al on why pros­e­cu­tors (stand-in and oth­er­wise) con­tin­ue to ob­struct jus­tice by their ab­sences, if not un­pre­pared­ness.

I have ob­served quite a few “le­gal lu­mi­nar­ies” cel­e­brat­ing vic­to­ries that fell in­to their laps just be­cause they and their clients at­tend­ed court while the peo­ple and the State were com­plete­ly un­rep­re­sent­ed. Per­haps such ab­sences will be re­ward­ed with pro­mo­tions or pay in­creas­es. Last week In­di­an PM Mo­di made his first state vis­it to Guyana, where he met with Cari­com lead­ers.

He pledged to as­sist in sec­tors such as ed­u­ca­tion, en­er­gy, agri­cul­ture, and sport. PM Row­ley and his con­tin­gent would have had di­rect con­tact with him in the fur­ther­ance of our coun­try’s in­ter­ests. We an­tic­i­pate de­tails as he re­takes the reins from Min­is­ter Young.

In this elec­tion year, the peo­ple are look­ing for rep­re­sen­ta­tives who can do jus­tice to any SRC pay in­crease or some ac­tu­al per­for­mance eval­u­a­tion. That should come from the Op­po­si­tion UNC but the PNM has been grant­ed leave to seek dam­ages from that very UNC aris­ing out of the UNC lead­er­ship’s failed 2015 elec­tion pe­ti­tions.

Those UNC pe­ti­tion­ers will now have to find the mil­lions to pay the PNM. Such re­minders of UNC loss­es in an elec­tion year re­quire an even greater ef­fort by the UNC lead­er­ship to get it right this time. Will they?