Governments Keep ‘Raiding the Public Purse’- Dr. Jeffrey

Former People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) minister and political scientist Dr. Henry Jeffrey says Guyana’s political class has repeatedly failed to deliver promised reforms to the way constitutional office holders are paid, arguing that successive administrations have retained executive control over salaries and pensions at the expense of transparency, accountability and public trust.

Jeffrey’s latest commentary comes as the government seeks to amend the Former Presidents (Benefits and Other Facilities) Act, removing the existing cap on benefits and replacing it with an open-ended framework. The proposed changes have sparked public debate, with critics warning they could significantly expand benefits for former presidents at a time when many Guyanese are struggling with a high cost of living, stagnant wages, unemployment and persistent poverty.

In his Future Notes column published on June 21 under the headline Still Raiding the Public Purse, Jeffrey argues that the controversy over former presidents’ benefits is not an isolated issue but part of a longstanding pattern in which governments have resisted creating an independent mechanism to determine their own remuneration.

Jeffrey, who served as a minister in the PPP/C administration before becoming one of its most outspoken critics, contends that both the governing PPP/C and the former A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance for Change  (APNU+AFC) coalition have failed to relinquish the executive’s power to determine salaries and pensions for constitutional office holders.

Drawing on a column he wrote a decade ago, Jeffrey contrasted Guyana’s approach with that of the United States, where he said constitutional safeguards were deliberately designed to prevent incumbent governments from enriching themselves.

“Recognising the propensity of human beings to be selfish and greedy, they determined that incumbent presidents/governments should not have the authority to increase their own emoluments but may do so for their successors,” he wrote, adding that such an arrangement “would be far more morally and politically sensible” in an ethnically divided society such as Guyana.

Jeffrey recalled that when the PPP/C returned to office in 1992 after nearly three decades in opposition, it condemned what it described as “super salaries” under the previous administration. He noted that former President Cheddi Jagan attempted to limit disparities by proposing that the highest public service salary should not exceed ten times the minimum wage.

According to Jeffrey, that philosophy did not survive Jagan’s presidency.

He noted that when the PPP/C assumed office, the president’s pension was approximately six times the public service minimum wage. By the time former President Bharrat Jagdeo left office, Jeffrey said, the pension had risen to more than $1 million per month—more than 27 times the then public service minimum wage. He argued that ministerial salaries also widened substantially relative to the earnings of ordinary public servants.

Jeffrey said the recurring debate over executive compensation reflects the absence of an independent and transparent system for determining public officials’ pay.

Reflecting on earlier controversies surrounding presidential pensions, he wrote: “While I understand the politics which now demand some reform of former President Jagdeo’s benefits, I believe that what is much more important, and will be of lasting benefit, would be a root and branch approach which firstly considers what constitutes fair emoluments in the entire public sector and establish independent periodic income reviews.“

He noted that APNU+AFC embraced that principle in its 2015 election manifesto by promising to establish an Independent Constitutional Salaries Review Commission to review the salaries, pensions and conditions of service of constitutional office holders.

However, Jeffrey argued that once elected, the coalition abandoned that commitment.

“Instead of seeking to establish the independent wages commission as promised, it immediately became involved in controversy—even with its own supporters—having to do with a substantial increase in income it gave itself,” he wrote.

He further criticised the coalition for continuing unilateral salary increases, ignoring collective bargaining and pursuing what he described as “the morally questionable position of the executive determining its own income.”

Jeffrey was equally critical of successive PPP/C administrations after Cheddi Jagan’s death, arguing that they abandoned efforts to link public sector wages to inflation and economic performance in favour of discretionary annual increases that often failed to keep pace with the rising cost of living.

“Post-Cheddi Jagan PPP governments, set upon political/ethnic dominance, wanted the administrative space to unilaterally apply across the board end of year awards that hardly cover the rate of inflation,” he wrote.

For Jeffrey, the recurring controversy over politicians’ remuneration is rooted in a broader failure of democratic accountability.

“All this palaver results from the fact that constitutional theory aside, normal democratic practice does not hold in Guyana: governments are not accountable,” he wrote.

He argued that elections alone are insufficient to hold governments accountable in an ethnically divided society and suggested that Guyana requires far-reaching constitutional reforms, including shared governance arrangements, supermajority voting and other institutional safeguards to restrain executive power.

Concluding his analysis, Jeffrey said Guyana remains trapped in a cycle where governments are able to avoid meaningful scrutiny while retaining control over public resources.

“Put simply,” he wrote, “we are in a political quagmire of deception that, among other things, facilitates the continued raiding of the public purse.“