It will cost the Government more than $100 billion to restructure the system of public sector compensation over the next three years.

This was announced by Minister of Finance and the Public Service Nigel Clarke, who said that approximately $17 billion of the sum relates to certain categories of allowances “that up until the current fiscal year, have been classified in programmes and not wages”.

He was delivering the opening presentation in the 2022/23 Budget Debate in the House of Representatives, under the theme ‘Recovery, Reform and Restoration’.

The restructuring exercise is intended to overhaul the system of salaries and other emoluments in the public service to make it more equitable.

Dr Clarke said that, while implementation is slated to commence on April 1, 2022, “that does not mean that your April pay cheque will reflect the [new] restructured compensation system”.

“First, we want to have the opportunity to continue our engagement with public sector unions and bargaining groups, provide more information and fine-tune the system. We then propose that early in the second quarter of the new fiscal year [2022/23], the implementation will begin, but it will be effective retroactive to April 1, 2022,” he explained.

The minister said that every public sector employee “will know [beforehand] what your salary will be this year, what it will be next year, and what it will be in the third year when we have completed the implementation”.

Dr Clarke noted that the new system will be characterised by simplicity, improved pensions and greater efficiency and transparency “for the individual and for the country and, ultimately, will be a contributing factor to better quality service”.

He reiterated that no public sector employee’s net pay will be lower consequent on the new compensation system, but rather higher.

“We are abandoning the existing cumbersome, complex, unworkable, and unsustainable compensation system and implementing a new [one] that incorporates the principles [of transparency and clarity],” he pointed out.

Dr Clarke emphasised that once compensation restructuring commences, “Jamaicans will also expect more from the public sector, and rightly so. Because it is taxpayers’ money that is paying those salaries, Jamaicans will expect more from their civil servants, more from their parliamentarians, more from their ministers,” he added.

The current public sector compensation structure comprises 325 salary scales and 185 allowances.