PHILIPSBURG:--- The Council of Ministers are depending on the various unions to support them in the planned salary cuts for civil servants announced Minister of Finance Ardwell Irion and Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs.
Minister Irion said that he is of the opinion that the meeting with Council of Ministers and unions went well even though the unions expressed concerns about the proposed salary cuts as they battle to keep the country afloat post COVID-19. Irion said civil servants that are earning NAF4,000.00 monthly will not be losing anything as the government will not touch their salaries or their vacation pay. However, civil servants earning NAF8,000.00 and upward will see a 10% cut. The Minister admitted that there is more to the package that he did not want to fully disclose on Wednesday since the full package has not yet been presented to unions.
Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs said on Tuesday during the Parliamentary discussions that the union shared some information that did not portray the entire discussions. She had promised to give more details on Wednesday but the Minister of Finance chose to have further discussion with the unions before making the entire package on salary cuts public.
Irion said the unions had already notified him that they were having difficulty selling the proposed cuts to their members but said that these cuts are necessary for the government since employees in the private sector also need assistance.
Meanwhile, Minister of Education Rodolphe Samuel said he would be needing the unions to stand beside him to fight for funding so that the schools and other educational facilities can be repaired since many of them are in a dilapidated state post-IRMA and MARIA.
St. Maarten like many other Caribbean islands and countries around the globe have been feeling the brunt of the economic downturn since COVID-19 reached the Caribbean. As for St. Maarten, that brunt is severe since the island depends solely on tourism for its economic turn-around.
