Opposition objects to gigantic raise

PARAMARIBO – Parliament is currently discussing a bill aimed at giving the president, the vice president, the ministers and legislators a generous raise. MP Stephen Tsang (NDP) and the members of his faction strongly condemned this bill and urged the people who drew up this bill to withdraw it. If this bill is approved the president’s salary that had already been raised to SRD 80,000 will be raised to SRD 170,000. MP Tsang explained that on top of this generous raise the government officials would also get the additional bonuses and allowances.

“The salary of the president, vice president, ministers and members of parliament were linked to the salary of the state employees which means that they also got a 20% raise recently,” said MP Tsang who added that the bill that is aimed at separating the salaries of government officials from those of the state employees as is currently proposed in the bill would only create an even bigger gap between the high ranking government officials and the nation’s wage earners.

MP Tsang also condemned that fact that the bill will allow the government to stealthily raise the salaries of government officials via a state decree and without the consent of parliament. The members of the opposition made it clear that this bill goes against this administration’s objective to stick to austerity measures. “There is a lot of talk about austerity measures by scrapping the provisions for former legislators and former ministers but at the same time you want to give the current officials a gigantic raise. That is not economizing. That is deception,” said MP Tsang.