{"id":22657,"date":"2012-06-13T20:33:11","date_gmt":"2012-06-14T00:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=22657"},"modified":"2012-06-14T00:44:04","modified_gmt":"2012-06-14T04:44:04","slug":"budget-blunder-or-sneaky-attempt-to-raise-ministers-salaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2012\/06\/budget-blunder-or-sneaky-attempt-to-raise-ministers-salaries","title":{"rendered":"Budget Blunder or Sneaky Attempt to Raise Minister’s Salaries?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Michael
Red-faced Michael Halkitas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A $6,000 annual salary increase reflected in the 2012\/2013 budget for ministers of state is \u201can error\u201d, Minister of State for Finance Michael Halkitis said yesterday, assuring that the correction will be made prior to the start of the new fiscal year on July 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cSalaries of the current ministers of state will remain at $60,000 and at the appropriate time in this debate the necessary ammendments will be made to the bill to reflect the $60,000 for ministers of state,\u201d said Halkitis in the House of Assembly yesterday afternoon.<\/p>\n

He assured, \u201cNo minister of state has been paid at the level of $66,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

A short time earlier, Halkitis said if any had been paid at this level the money would be refunded.<\/p>\n

He responded to a question from The Nassau Guardian on the matter minutes after leaving a Cabinet meeting.<\/p>\n

Senior ministers earn $66,000.\u00a0 The new budget reflects $66,000 as the salaries for both senior ministers and ministers of state, commonly referred to as junior ministers.<\/p>\n

Former Minister of State for Finance Zhivargo Laing, in an interview with The Nassau Guardian, questioned how such a mistake could be made.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo concede that that was a mistake would be yet another significant challenge for the government,\u201d Laing said yesterday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question is, what other mistakes are in there?\u00a0 Were there mistakes in the calculation of the $504 million deficit that they said we left behind?\u00a0 What errors are reflected in that?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be commenting on that $504 million deficit and I think what would be wonderful is to get details from the government as to how they calculated that, because if this is a mistake what other mistakes exist in there?\u201d<\/p>\n

Laing said, \u201cYes, you can make mistakes.\u00a0 There\u2019s no question about that, but I don\u2019t think the international community or the national community wants to hear that we are making those kinds of mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laing said when the minister of finance is going through the budget the very first thing he reviews under personal emoluments is the salaries of ministers.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are checking the budget to make sure it\u2019s accurate and you missed the very first item in any head?\u00a0 To me that is profound.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laing said the salary of ministers of state has been the same for the last 20 years.<\/p>\n

The system is an automated, computerized system, he noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one would dare change that (the salary) unless they receive an instruction from the minister of finance to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to Halkitis\u2019 announcement that a mistake was made in the budget, Opposition Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis had said a salary increase would send the wrong message at this time when many people are still struggling.<\/p>\n

If anything, he said, ministers should be getting salary decreases at this time, a move taken by the Ingraham administration during the recession.\u00a0 The salaries were eventually returned to previous levels.<\/p>\n

There are five ministers of state in the new adminstration: Halkitis; 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.<\/p>\n

There were two ministers of state in the Ingraham administration: Laing and Loretta Butler-Turner, who is now deputy leader of the Free National Movement and MP for Long Island.<\/p>\n

Halkitis told The Nassau Guardian yesterday no other mistake was made in the budget.<\/p>\n

Source: The Nassau Guardian<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It appears that the “D” average in math scores is not just among Bahamian students, as it appears the Minister of Finance needs a lesson in arithmetic as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[93,40,60],"class_list":["post-22657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-corruption","tag-government","tag-plp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22657\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}