Auditor General Sonia Webster is investigating how the government dramatically underestimated the cost of public-service salary increases awarded last year, according to Premier Natalio “Sowande” Wheatley.
He made the disclosure in the House of Assembly last Thursday in response to a question from opposition member Myron Walwyn.
“The premier and minister of finance gave the territory the impression that an investigation into the $20 million … underestimation of salary increases to public officers was being conducted,” said Mr. Walwyn (R-at large). “However, during the recent Standing Finance [Committee] sessions, we discovered that this was not so. Could the premier and minister of finance advise what is the status of the investigation into this matter and provide tangible proof of his efforts to have this investigation commence?”
Mr. Walwyn also asked Mr. Wheatley “when he discovered that the investigation was not being conducted” and why he didn’t immediately advise the public of that fact.
Governor’s memo
In response, Mr. Wheatley said he received a memo from Governor Daniel Pruce on Oct. 17 indicating that an investigation had commenced. He was then “surprised to hear during Standing Finance [Committee] information contradicting what the governor wrote,” he explained. He added that the SFC session, which was held last November and December, “was the first time I understood that the investigations had not commenced as the governor had confirmed by memo. However, I can confirm that I was informed by the governor [later] that the auditor general has taken on this task and started an investigation.”
Mr. Wheatley added that the auditor general’s report will be made available to the HOA “at the appropriate time.”
‘Woefully inadequate’
Mr. Walwyn said that the premier’s answer was “woefully inadequate,” noting that Mr. Wheatley did not state the date he learned that an investigation had not commenced and asking why he didn’t “advise the public” what he had learned.
Mr. Wheatley responded that “the member’s comprehension is woefully inadequate.”
Speaker of the House Corine George-Massicote then cut off the premier and called for a short recess.
Returning just over 10 minutes later, Mr. Walwyn called for an apology from the premier.
“Madam Speaker, I’ll put it to you very strongly: Your authority would be under threat if the premier is not reprimanded in some manner for what he said to me today,” Mr. Walwyn said.
Ms. George-Massicote replied, “Why do I feel like I’ve just been threatened?”
Mr. Walwyn said that he “would never do that” but reiterated that insults should not be accepted in the House.
Mr. Wheatley then spoke up again.
“I’m so disturbed by what the member for the Sixth just said to the speaker of the House in making a point about respect at the very same time threatening the speaker and her authority,” he said. “That is, in my view, Madam Speaker, in very poor taste.”
Mr. Wheatley went on to apologise to both the speaker and Mr. Walwyn “for saying that his comprehension was inadequate.”
Clarification
He then clarified his answer to Mr. Walwyn’s initial question.
“When I realised the investigation had not commenced was during Standing Finance. That was in my response,” he said. “And in terms of why I did not go to the public and tell them that the investigation had not commenced, Madam Speaker, my interest is to ensure that the investigation was done. So my first thing when I realised that the information that the governor gave me and that was given in Standing Finance conflicted, I had a conversation with the governor, and we were able to come to a point where we were to get an investigation going, and that was my primary focus.”
Mr. Walwyn followed up by asking Mr. Wheatley again when “it came to his knowledge that the auditor general was undertaking this investigation.”
Mr. Wheatley replied that he was unable to give an exact date, but said the governor gave him that information “soon after” the Standing Finance Committee deliberations.
The plan to raise public service salaries was announced in the 2024 Budget Address in November 2023, when the premier said Cabinet had decided to include about $10 million in last year’s budget to ensure that all public officers earn a living wage.
The government proceeded to implement wide-ranging raises, only to realise later that the cost had reached at least $23 million, officials have said.
Coming to light
The blunder didn’t come to light publicly until last August, when the HOA passed a Schedule of Additional Provisions to cover the shortfall.
At the time, officials explained that the cost of the salary increases was originally estimated using the Compensation Review and Job Classification Report completed in November 2023 by a Trinidad branch of the global consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), which was hired by the Deputy Governor’s Office.
After the new salary structure took effect last March — with the government claiming that all public officers were then earning a living wage — the DGO told the Beacon that the annual cost of the increases was still projected to be around $10 million.
But the premier told the HOA last August that a major discrepancy was discovered after a Ministry of Finance analysis completed last April.
“The analysis revealed that there was a significant variance between the funding required for personal emoluments for the current officers, which as of [April 15] amounted to $25,056,518, … and the $11.7 million appropriated in the budget,” the premier said at the time.
Mr. Wheatley also said at the time that the governor had agreed to his request for an investigation into the PWC report and the underestimate.
“A number of problematic assumptions were made in the report that resulted in the variance in the amount stated in the report and the amount computed by the Ministry of Finance,” the premier explained at the time.
This variance, he added, was of “great concern” to his government.
“As a result of this variance, Cabinet has recommended to the governor an immediate freeze on non-essential hiring, restrictions on travel, advancing the implementation of a contributory pension scheme, and the establishment of a committee to develop proposals or consider proposals for revenue-raising initiatives and cost-saving measures,” Mr. Wheatley said at the time.
British Caribbean News