The Tribune

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

PERSONAL allowances will no longer be given to Ministers of State under the new government in an effort to ensure all state ministers earn the same salary, Minister of State for Finance Michael Halkitis said yesterday.

Mr Halkitis said the change came about after it was discovered the former Minster of State for Finance Zhivargo Laing made a salary of $99,000, nearly $6,000 more than his counterparts.

Wrapping up the budget debate in the House of Assembly yesterday, Mr Halkitis said the PLP administration believes all Ministers of State - across the board - should be paid the same salary.

He said: "It is the view of this administration that all Ministers of State make the same thing. We already made the adjustment to the salary, however we can not make the adjustment unless there is an amendment to this law. So what we are doing is we are making the correction for the purpose of transparency. Compensation that will be paid to Ministers of State in this administration will be $60,000 for that post, $28,000 for those who are members of parliament and $5,000 duty allowance as is provided for in the law. There will be no personal allowance paid."

Mr Halkitis said previous administrations used the device of personal allowance to equalize salaries of ministers, ministers of state or ministers who were appointed to the Senate. Therefore if senators salaries, when added to their ministers salary, was not equal to that of a sitting member in the House of Assembly personal allowances were paid to equalize the salaries.

However, Mr Halkitis said this was not the case in the former administration, where there were four ministers of state but one of them was paid more than the others.

"There were four ministers of state - the now member for Long Island, the former Member for Pinewood, Byron Woodside, Mr Phenton Neymour as well as the former Member for Marco City Zhivargo Laing.

They all earned $60,000. In the case of the current member for Long Island, she earned $60,00 as a ministers salary, $28,000 as a MP salary and a duty allowance of $5,000 for a total of $93,000," he said.

"The same applies to Byron Woodside and Phenton Neymour. The only exception was the minister of state for finance in administration who earned $60,000 as a minister for state, $28,000 as a MP a duty allowance of $5,000 and a additional personal allowance of $6,000 for a total of $99,000. So on the last administration we had this imbalance where three ministers were earning $93,000 and one was earning $99,000."

Earlier in the week, Mr Halkitis called the $6,000 increase in minister of state salaries a "mistake". He said had he been paid the money, he would have returned it.

Other than Mr Halkitis, There are four ministers of state in the new administration: Minister of State in the Ministry of Legal Affairs Damian Gomez; Minister of State in the Ministry of National Security Keith Bell; Minister of State in the Ministry of Transport and Aviation Hope Strachan and Minister of State for Investments Khaalis Rolle.