The Honorable Minister of Home Affairs, Mr. Kenneth Hodge, says that it won’t be long before work on the long-awaited minimum wage will be completed and he will receive the document in his hands to take to eventually the House.
Minister Hodge told the Government Press Conference on Monday 5th June, 2023, that the Minimum Wage Advisory Committee had been working extremely hard on the document and he expects a finished draft in the near future.
The Minister had just returned from Guyana where he attended a series of International Labour Organization (ILO) meetings of Caribbean Ministers of Labour. He reported that, in fact, one of the pivotal topics at those meetings was the Minimum Wage.
“The participating Ministers and Heads of Delegations at the sessions had an opportunity to present statements from their respective countries,” he said. “What struck me in those presentations was that in every single case, references were made to minimum wage. This was a commonality across the territories. While some countries were reviewing their minimum wage, other countries were increasing them, and some others were just beginning the process of holding consultation meetings for implementing the minimum wage.”
“This tells me that there is a consensus among our Caribbean territories about ensuring that the people at the bottom of the tier of labour are properly provided for,” he said. “Minimum wage is really that safety net for the persons at the very bottom of the wage scale.”
“Our Minimum Wage [Advisory] Committee has submitted its first draft report to the Ministry,” he noted. “We are now waiting for the Committee to submit its final draft. They are currently going through the document, making their final edits and relevant changes.”
“We are hoping to get the final report on hand very soon,” he said. “Once we get that, we will be proceeding to discuss it at Cabinet level, then we will move it to Executive Council and finally we will be presenting it to the House.”
