Opposition Leader Mark Golding has pledged to give back 80 per cent of the massive salary increase he has received as part of the Government’s compensation review for the public sector.

Golding made the commitment on Friday during a press conference at the Old Hope Road headquarters of the People’s National Party (PNP).

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The more than 240 per cent increase for Golding will put his salary at $25.7 million come April 1 next year. He is paid at the same level as Deputy Prime Minister Dr Horace Chang. Only Prime Minister Andrew Holness, who will pocket $28.6 million next year, is paid more among the country’s political class.

Responding to public outcry, including from church groups about the “ungracious, shameful and inequitable” nature of the salary increases for politicians, Golding said: “I did not come into politics to enrich myself but to serve the people of Jamaica”.

“As leader of the Opposition, I must lead by example at a time like this. I will therefore redirect the bulk of the 240+ per cent increase in my pay and retain 20 per cent of that increase and contribute the rest to persons in need and other worthy causes,” Golding said.

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“I intend to do this until the outstanding grouses affecting the public sector workers arising out of the restructuring have been satisfactorily addressed,” he added.

A lawyer and investment banker who served as justice minister in the last PNP administration, Golding said he was mindful that the Opposition leader was the only parliamentarian on the Opposition benches whose salary package is in the senior executive leadership category. He said the other 13 Opposition Members of Parliament whose salaries will move to $14.2 million next April, are having discussions among themselves to determine how best to deal with their respective situation.

He reiterated a call from the party’s spokesman on finance, Julian Robinson, for the humongous increases to politicians to be suspended, until outstanding grievances affecting public sector workers are satisfactorily addressed.

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Robinson, who also spoke at the press conference, called for a rollback of the amounts being paid to Cabinet Ministers which would also see the other salaries being rolled back. He said the government rather disingenuously pegged salaries for ministers at the top of the salary scale for permanent secretaries, resulting in the massive increases while claiming that they were pegged at $52 more.

Robinson said no permanent secretary was placed at the top of the salary scale. He pointed out that placing the minister closer to the mid-point of the nine-point scale would pull salaries back from $23 million to about $20 million and would see all other salaries for politicians revised downwards.

Meanwhile, Golding charged that the principle of equity was not adhered to in the new public sector pay arrangements. He said many public sector workers were left out in the cold.

“In this context, the massive award to the political class further offends that principle of equity,” he declared.

And, Golding noted that the level of the increases will put the salaries of Jamaican politicians way above their counterparts in the region who are experiencing better and more sustained GDP growth.

“That is a situation that is difficult to justify given that we have one of the lowest rates of GDP per capita among our regional peers and Jamaica has not managed to rise out of its chronic low economic growth pattern,” he said.

“This salary mechanism will need to be revisited under the next PNP government,” he stated, while brushing aside as “hollow” the argument by Holness that the increases were necessary to attract the best people into politics.

Said Golding: “Nowhere in the world is monetary compensation the inducement to enter into politics and to give honest service to one’s nation. What our country needs at this time is to attract, motivate and to retain persons within our teaching profession, our nursing profession, our law enforcement professions and so on”.