Pilloried and accused of giving themselves a huge pay hike as they asked everyone else to tighten their belts, Parliamentarians still cannot decide, after 18 months, how to treat the Oliver Clarke-led committee’s report that said they were not being overpaid.

MPs’ salaries – which should have been increased by five per cent in April 2003, six per cent more in April 2004, and another four per cent in April 2005 – were frozen by Prime Minister P J Patterson in February 2003, pending the completion of the report.

The document has been ready since October 29, 2003, but it still remains unclear if MPs will get the additional pay hike. Patterson asked a committee, led by Finance Minister Dr Omar Davies, to study the report. However, the finance ministry has opted not to discuss the issue at this time.

“Concerning your enquiry about the parliamentarians’ salaries, I am advised that the report is now being studied by Cabinet. So until it is fully studied, we won’t be able to respond to you,” said the ministry’s communications man, Cordell Braham, in response to questions emailed to Davies.

Meanwhile, it appears that very little, if any movement has been made in actually implementing the Clarke recommendations.

“I couldn’t tell you definitively whether they have or they haven’t (implemented any of the recommendations made in the report); but I’m not aware of it,” Clarke told the Sunday Observer. “I am not aware that any action has been taken.”

Among the 40 recommendations made by the committee was a call for parliamentarians’ salaries to be taxed, just like that of private citizens. But a large number of the recommendations appear to favour the MPs, who may be reluctant to implement them in the current economic climate.

On February 17, 2004, the government and the major trade unions hammered out a public sector Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) aimed at providing some level of economic stability by keeping the government’s wage bill down while it reins in debt and inflation.

The wage freeze-for-jobs pact put a three per cent cap on increases in public sector wages that were then being negotiated and a freeze on all others.

On the face of it, the MOU would not apply to the MPs’ pay hike, which was approved in October 2002, but public sentiment will likely have a major impact on any decision taken about the additional increases due to them.

It is expected that Patterson will address the issue after Cabinet completes its review of the Clarke report.

According to Clarke, he and his team were asked, last year, to “look at some of the findings” of the Davies-led review committee and give their opinion.

“We did,” Clarke said. “I’m not aware of any further action being taken.” Over the years, successive administrations have commissioned reports and then, for the most part, ignored them.

Clarke’s diplomatic answer to the question of whether he felt he had wasted his time was, “Well, I think it would be encouraging if some action was taken. But if you ask somebody for advice, it’s up to you to decide whether you’re going to use it.”

He had found the experience “highly educational”, he said with a laugh. Meanwhile, Patterson, it appears, is becoming impatient with the Davies-led committee and, according to information minister Burchell Whiteman, recently expressed concern about the pace of the review.

“The prime minister has been chastising us for not finishing the work,” Whiteman said last Monday. “Just today, the prime minister asked Minister Davies to complete the work.”

Like Clarke, Whiteman was not aware of any of the Clarke committee’s recommendations being implemented.

“To the best of my knowledge, I don’t think anything has actually been implemented,” he said. “There have been several meetings of the committee, which includes Opposition members. A number of things have been signed off on, but nothing has been concretely settled.”

Parliamentarians have been busy tending to the affairs of the nation, Whiteman intimated, adding, with a chuckle, that “maybe it’s commendable that the last thing parliamentarians are thinking about is their pay”.

Among the recommendations in the Clarke report was a call for a greater differential between the salaries of prime minister, Cabinet ministers and parliamentarians.

The committee had suggested that as of April 2004, a prime minister should receive three times the pay of MPs, while Cabinet ministers should get twice as much as MPs.

“That has not been done,” Whiteman said. “A number of items have been agreed upon, but I’m not aware of a final signing off.”