UNC cannot deal with doctors

A FORMER United National Congress (UNC) government minister said no Cabinet sub-committee had the authority to strike a deal with the nation’s doctors to increase their salaries. This was the revelation yesterday from Mervyn Assam who was a member of the Cabinet’s Finance and General Purposes Committee which is said to have negotiated a $40 million backpay with a certain clique of doctors prior to the December 2001 general elections.

Speaking in Parliament on Friday during debate on amendments to the Medical Board Act, Planning Minister Dr Keith Rowley disclosed that the People’s National Movement discovered the agreement when it came into office. Dr Rowley said this secret deal lay at the heart of all the turmoil in the health sector last year and this year. The minister slammed both the UNC and the Medical Professionals Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MPATT) for publicly saying there were no arrangements to pay doctors’ salaries, when in fact there were. Rowley declared the issue was not about race or political affiliations. “It has to do with a group of public officers being able to negotiate their terms and conditions directly one on one with the Cabinet,” he said. While he could not recall whether such an arrangement was made at the time in question, Assam told Newsday that a committee could not negotiate directly with any group of public officers.