​THE EDITOR: Listening to the Prime Minister's poor attempt to justify his notion for accepting the salary increase recommended by the Salary Review Commission (SRC), besides the obvious lack of performance to warrant such an increase, there was a glaring disparity in the ethical code of the Prime Minister. Specifically the code of ethics in accepting the SRC report versus the Paria Report.

Last week Thursday the Prime Minister told the nation that “whether it is fair or not is not the point. Those who were given the assignment to do it have done it; these are the recommendations. I accept it without more on this occasion.”

As a matter of fact, he went further to state that “the recommendations have come after work I believe to have been good work, and I am prepared to accept their work”

The Prime Minister carried us down a rabbit hole to believe that the foundation for his acceptance was based on the fact that an independent body had made independent recommendations and they were to be accepted as it was good work.

Yet the very same Prime Minister was less than accommodating, if not dismissive, when another independent body, the Paria Commission of Enquiry (CoE), made significant compassionate recommendations, after months of significant work, to help victims who have endured one of the most heart-wrenching catastrophes in our nation.

On January 26, after the public findings of the CoE, I posed a question to the Prime Minister in the House of Representatives based on specific humanitarian recommendations made by the commission’s chairman Jerome Lynch KC. I asked:

“Given that the final report of the Commission of Enquiry into the Paria Tragedy recommended that compensation be given to the families of the victims, who were involved in this fatality without accepting liability, will the Prime Minister state if the government has considered offering compensation either through Paria or other avenues to the affected families on behalf of the state?”

The Prime Minister used every excuse in the book to reject the substance of this question, from corporate to legal. The Prime Minister even stated in a subsequent but related question that “the government cannot just jump in and decide to pay compensation willy-nilly all over the place”

Why did the Prime Minister fail to apply the same level of judgement or rationale used in his acceptance of the SRC report to the recommendations of compensation within the Paria report?

Back in January the Prime Minister had an issue with the “willy-nilly” provision of aid to families who had suffered the loss of their sole breadwinners, but 11 months later he had no problem in accepting an increase of his own salary coupled with a million-dollar back pay.

The glaring double standard has truly betrayed citizens, especially when the Prime Minister himself called on citizens to “hold the fort as the period from now to the second quarter of 2027 would be a difficult one.”

DAVID LEE

MP, Pointe-a-Pierre

Opposition Chief Whip

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