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Friday,
June 19th, 2009:
St George’s, Grenada:
Leader of
the Opposition, Dr. the Rt. Hon. Keith
Mitchell is calling on the NDC
administration to immediately reinstate
the special proficiency allowance which
has been recently removed from the
salaries of some police officers.
According to
Dr. Mitchell, this action by the current
administration cannot be justified and
is nothing but an act of oppression
against police officers who are
deserving of this allowance. The
Special Proficiency Allowance was
negotiated by the NNP administration and
the Police Welfare Association and was
part of the dialogue which resulted in
salary increases and numerous benefits
for police officers at all levels.
According to
Dr. Mitchell the Government seems to
have started a trend of reducing the
take home pay of workers in the country
without even consulting with them. He
noted that police officers and road
workers are already the victims of this
action. He describes the reduction of
the salary of the road workers by $10.00
per day as an injustice against the poor
and vulnerable, saying that the
reduction was made at the same time that
the workers were called upon to work
longer hours with an increased
workload. Furthermore, the Government
took the decision to reduce the number
of road workers employed through the
programme by more than 75% and reduced a
gang of workers from 7 to 5 persons
leaving thousands unable to earn and
income. .
Dr. Mitchell
says he finds it very difficult to
comprehend how it is so easy for the NDC
administration to reduce the take home
pay of ordinary workers when they
blatantly refuse to take a pay cut after
they were called upon to do so recently,
by the opposition. He believes that it
is amazing that the ordinary man has to
suffer these injustices while Government
Ministers are travelling daily around
the world, costing the State hundreds of
thousands of dollars in a time when the
Government claims that the country has
no money.
The leader
of the opposition therefore calls on the
NDC to have a heart and to refrain from
taking any further decision that will
further impact negatively on the lives
of ordinary workers in the country. He
further calls on the Government in light
of the economic situation in the country
to reinstate the special proficiency
allowance paid to police officers and
the $10.00 per day which was removed
from the road workers salary.
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