Vice President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday highlighted that Guyanese public servants whose unions have not yet brokered deals with the government will receive the recently announced 10% salary increase.
Dr. Jagdeo focused much of the first segment of his weekly press conference delving into the government’s recently announced 10% retroactive salary increase for public servants.
President Dr. Irfaan Ali recently announced the 10% increase following talks with the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU). In 2025, workers will receive an 8% increase.
Weeks before that, the Ministry of Education and the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) managed to ink a deal of comprehensive benefits, including salary increases for teachers. Per that agreement, teachers will get a 10% increase in 2024 while in 2025, an 8% increase and in 2026, a 9% increase.
Additionally, the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) signed a three-year wages and salaries agreement with the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) recently. In this agreement, sugar workers will get a 10% retroactive pay hike in 2024, 8% for 2025 and 9% for 2026.
As he championed the increases, and the myriad of other benefits public sector workers are receiving, the Vice President clarified that all of these workers are to receive the double-digit increase.
Over 33, 000 public sector workers to benefit from historic 10% salary increase totalling $7B
“We are hoping that we will continue to work with the other unions to conclude agreements of a similar nature.
“If we do not have agreements for the rest of the public servants, the 10% will be paid out to those others in the public sector. So this is something that is a great movement forward (because) it recognises the role that our public servants play and it treats them with respect,” the Vice President said.
Beyond salary increases, Dr. Jagdeo highlighted several other benefits public sector workers are getting. Those benefits include house lots, increased allowances, scholarships to advance themselves and better access to services because of key investments in infrastructure works.
