PM objects to inflated salaries — calls on WASA chairman to explain

In a sternly worded letter, which conveyed his strong objections to inflated salaries in the public sector, Prime Minister Patrick Manning took the unusual step of calling on the chairman of WASA to ensure that the salary and emoluments paid to WASA’s CEO, Errol Grimes, have not been increased to $50,000 “in defiance of the agreement of the Cabinet”.

The letter was dispatched yesterday, following a report in the media that Grimes was still receiving a $50,000 salary. However, the report was inaccurate. Public Utilities Minister Rennie Dumas assured Newsday that Grimes is, in fact, receiving a $36,000 salary. According to sources, a compensation package of $44,000 is to be forwarded to Cabinet for its approval. This package was recommended by the Public Sector Negotiating Committee.

Dumas said he gave the instructions in January that Grimes and others revert to the old salaries, and it was implemented in either January or February.  But he noted the affair involving Grimes and his salary had become “a mess of confusion and comess”. “We seem to have a Grimes complex. He has become a symbol for all the things we want to clean out and damage,” Dumas said, wondering if all the attention had to do with “persecution or public policy”. The minister called for “gentleness and sanity”. Manning’s letter, which was hardly gentle, pointed out that the Minister of Public Utilities had “given the Cabinet the assurance” that he had instructed that the salary of $50,000 not be paid to Grimes, since approval, “which was required in advance, had neither been sought nor obtained from the Public Sector Negotiating Committee”.  Noting that the matter was of “national concern” and was “highly publicised”, the Prime Minister demanded a response from the chairman, “within 24 hours”.

Chairman Roland Baptiste said yesterday: “We will respond because we followed the instructions of the Government. I will respond to the Honourable Prime Minister immediately.” Dumas said the whole question of salaries for WASA contract officers would be reported to the Cabinet and the whole issue cleared up by mon-th’s end. Dumas also stressed that the Cabinet would be considering the legal implications of asking Grimes to return monies paid to him during the period when he was collecting the $50,000 salary. “If an employer tells you that you are entitled to this sum and then the employer changes its mind...Mr Grimes is not responsible... He is a worker who had his compensation package determined by a process,” the minister stated. He said there may have been some “improper public management procedure” involved, but the “viciousness” against Grimes was unwarranted.

Dumas said in this period, “as in the last (UNC) period”, there was no attempt to do what was procedurally correct. He said the Public Sector Negotiating Committee was chaired by Wade Mark and neither Mark, nor the line minister, Ganga Singh, attempted to do the correct thing and put the compensation issue before the committee.