Dear Editor,

Reference is made to article entitled ‘BOJ unionised staff enraged by exclusion from pay windfall’, which was published in the Jamaica Observer of April 24, 2018.

Kindly note that the article contains several inaccuracies including:

a. The suggestion that the executive management team received increases to their compensation packages, while the general staff received no increases, and that the alleged increases for the executives were effected as a retention strategy. This is incorrect.

b. The suggestion that the executive management benefited from a windfall arising from a compensation survey and that the general staff was left out of this windfall. This is also false.

Kindly note the following facts:

1. There was no top-up of compensation for the executive management of the Bank of Jamaica.

2. Increases in compensation for the executive management are made after settlement and implementation of increases for other staff members.

3. In March 2017 the bank’s board of directors approved the implementation of increases for deputy governors of four per cent and three per cent for the contract periods April 1, 2015 to March 31, 2016 and April 1, 2016 to March 31, 2017, respectively. These approvals were in the context that the same negotiated increases to salaries for other members of staff for the same contract periods were implemented in 2016.

4. In May 2017 the bank’s board of directors similarly approved the implementation of the four per cent and three per cent increase to salaries for the senior deputy governor and the governor for the contract periods April 1, 2015 to March 31, 2016 and April 1, 2016 to March 31, 2017, respectively. These were the same level of increases previously awarded to the general staff.

5. Additionally, in March 2017, the board of directors approved an adjustment in compensation to newly appointed deputy governors to address an inconsistency which resulted from increases in allowances for staff below the level of deputy governor and the loss of those allowances to the recently appointed deputy governors.

6. No adjustments were made to salaries of the executive management team as a result of the recent compensation survey.

In summary, the increases in compensation for executive management consisted of the negotiated settlement that applied to all members of staff and an adjustment to address an inconsistency in the compensation of newly appointed deputy governors as explained above.

John Robinson

Senior deputy governor

Bank of Jamaica