The Honourable Minister of Home Affairs, Labour and Immigration, Mr. Kenneth Hodge, says he is enthused about the prospects of tabling the long-awaited substantive Motion in the House of Assembly, relative to the Minimum Wage Bill.
The Motion is slated to be presented when the House of Assembly meets on Tuesday 11th July, 2023.
Minister Hodge said that over the past several months, the Minimum Wage Committee has been working assiduously, making extensive research, establishing documentation, and creating and fine tuning such documentation for a Bill that would address the needs of workers who are compensated unfairly.
The Committee, under the capable leadership of Economist Dr. Wycliffe Fahie, was able to present Preliminary results of their work during a public consultation meeting that took place in the House of Assembly on January 23rd and 24th, 2023. Discussion sessions were also held with employers, employees and other relevant stakeholders.
During the Government’s Press Conference of Monday 3rd July, 2023, Minister Hodge spoke to the upcoming substantive Motion on the minimum wage.
“We are in the process of rolling out the Minimum Wage on Tuesday 11th July,” he said. “On that date we intend to table a substantive motion in the House in order to seek bipartisan support from both sides of the House for the new Minimum Wage measures.”
He said the public will have an opportunity, as they listen to the proceedings of the House that day, to hear their parliamentarians expound in depth on the Minimum Wage.
“As I said in my Labour Day address,” the Minister continued, “the intention is to have the Minimum Wage Motion debated in the full glare of the public eye. There is nothing secretive about the work that we have been doing. We have been working on this for the benefit of that sector of our population which is being paid substandard wages.”
The Minister invited the public to be present in the gallery in the House on July 11th at 10:00 a.m., or to optionally listen to the House proceedings via radio or Facebook.
