Dear Mr Editor:
Does this government really care? How fitting a theme after the AUM candidate for District 7, Kristy Richardson, spoke about “love” on Saturday evening. Love for country – love for people. Let me address a key issue. People are unable to meet their basic needs with the reduction in salaries and the depletion of their savings. No deposits but continual withdrawals until persons are left with the meagre salary to rely on. As members of the civil service, we have endured reductions given the economic crisis – and lack of revenue in government coffers – with an understanding that we’ll be paid back.
I am sick and tired, and tired and sick, of hearing government boast about putting the island back in recovery with a surplus from Viceroy. This is a slap in the face of civil servants who are hurting. We have bills to pay, house loans to pay and school loans to pay for our children. Is that love? How much more should we suffer? Our salaries are just enough to cover our bills. We are choking on our salaries with no breath of air to sigh a relief – no extra change if there’s an emergency. Or, in most cases, the extra change is not even enough to cover the cost of service.
Now as a honourable government, with love for its country, I would make an urgent plea for government to repay us. Stop boasting about your surplus. And start to repay us. We bore the brunt with more than one salary cut. We are stifled. Help us to breathe so that we can survive.
Needy Civil Servant
(Name withheld by writer’s request.)
