Retired public officers will soon receive a boost in their pensions, Premier Natalio “Sowande” Wheatley said as he apologised for overlooking them when the government implemented controversial pay hikes last year.
“We are going to increase the pension benefits of the retirees under this upcoming budget,” Mr. Wheatley said during the government’s Virgin Islands Voice broadcast last week. “I’ll have to check with the financial secretary to see whether we can afford to make it retroactive.”
Mr. Wheatley, who is the finance minister, expressed regret for not including retirees from the start.
“It was not brought to my attention — a learning situation, I would say, for myself,” he said during the Oct. 8 broadcast.
Overspend
The comments came after the government overspent some $20 million last year in pay raises for public officers and House of Assembly members.
The error drew strong criticism from opposition members, who said the government had been negligent in failing to understand the true cost of the initiative.
During the broadcast last week, Mr. Wheatley did not disclose the cost of the planned pension increases, but he signalled that the payments may be upgraded more regularly in the future.
“I think what we need to do, similarly to public officers, is to have regular reviews of the pensioners’ benefits so that we could ensure that they keep pace with the cost of living,” he said. “We could tie it to the consumer pricing index, so to speak; tie it to inflation so that they get increases along with inflation every few years.”
He added that broader changes are also needed.
“For public officers, that is under the terms and conditions of employment, something that falls under the governor and traditionally is delegated to the deputy governor,” he said. “But it’s been brought to my attention that when we have upgrades to the salary, that the pensioners are taken care of at the same time.”
Auditor general
A report by Auditor General Sonia Webster on the public service pay controversy found that the Deputy Governor’s Office and the Ministry of Finance failed to give Cabinet a full and accurate picture of the cost of the 2024 salary increases.
This occurred despite internal warnings from the ministry that the final bill could be nearly three times higher than the estimate provided by outside consultants, according to Ms. Webster’s report, which was made public last month.
The Deputy Governor’s Office did not respond to a request for comment by Beacon press time yesterday afternoon.
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