( Real News Antigua) Ministers in the Browne Administration have been awarded an increase in their Duty Allowance, as of January 1, 2023, taking their payment from $1,000 to $3,000 a month, reliable sources have alleged to REAL News.
Accordingly, all eight Cabinet ministers – Gaston Browne, Maria Browne, E.P. Chet
Greene, Charles “Max” Fernandez, Steadroy “Cutie” Benjamin, Molwyn Joseph, Melford Nicholas, and Darryl Matthew – will receive $24,000, each, to cover the Allowance for last year, 2023.
This hike follows their controversial salary increase of 14 percent – which our
Newsroom broke last Friday, April 5 – which was backdated to last January, as well.
The sums in back-pay ranged from $19,000-plus for the prime minister to $6,000-plus
for the senators who serve as ministers of state.
Again, there was no word of this increase in Duty Allowance in this week’s Cabinet
Notes or in the post-Cabinet press briefing.
Ironically, the sources tell REAL News, despite Prime Minister Browne’s claim that the
increase in Opposition Members’ salaries had been delayed by a “glitch” in information
relayed from the Parliament, no instructions to pay them has been sent to the Treasury,
to date.
Today, April 12, on an outing on Observer Radio, Opposition Leader Jamale Pringle
described Browne’s comments on the 14 percent increase to government ministers as
untruths.
He noted that the 2024 Budget Estimates record the same amounts in annual salaries
for parliamentarians as were recorded since 1994, proving that no increase this year –
and none for last year – had been authorized.
