Time for public servants to enjoy benefits of ‘tight’ fiscal management — Bunting
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Jamaica’s tax burden at 29 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) is the highest in the region, says Opposition Spokesman on citizen security, Peter Bunting.
Given that development, Bunting shared that it is time for public sector workers to enjoy some of the benefits of years of fiscal management while adhering to the country’s fiscal rules.
He made the declaration at Tuesday night’s election debate on the economy while rebutting a response from Finance Minister Fayval Williams regarding why a recommendation from the Fiscal Commission for a reintroduction of a cap on public sector wages was ignored.
According to Bunting, “Our middle class has been hollowed out by a generation of belt tightening.”
“It is time that our nurses, our teachers, our police officers [and others), our public servants get to enjoy some of our benefits of years of tight fiscal management. It can’t always be that when it comes time for the people to benefit, we’re talking about managing fiscal rules, etcetera,” he posited.
However, the Manchester Southern parliamentary hopeful was quick to point out that the PNP “will observe the fiscal rules”.
“But we believe we must do a social transformation for the people,” he added.
Williams, in her earlier response to the question regarding the ignoring of a wage cap for public sector workers, said such wages were once calculated as a percentage of GDP.
“With our current fiscal rules and our debt-to-GDP rule, those are the two kind of guardrails that we use on the budget to keep everything in line. If we do that, if we keep that focus [on] our debt-to-GDP and on our fiscal balance, then everything in the budget will align and it would not be necessary to keep a cap on the wage bill that way as a percentage of GDP,” Williams indicated.
She explained, further, that it may have been one time that ratio was ever attained.
“So there’s good faith and confidence in the fiscal balance rules and the debt-to-GDP in order to help us keep everything in line [with the] budget,” Williams informed.
