(CNS): Public sector employees can look forward to a whopping $2,000 Christmas bonus after Premier Juliana O’Connor-Connolly said on Friday that the government was in a position to make the one-off payment. The bonuses are estimated to add another $9.7 million to the budget, added to a 5% cost of living allowance in the New Year, with the goal to guarantee a minimum wage of $3,000 per month for civil servants.
Speaking on Radio Cayman, O’Connor-Connolly also said that the government was planning to give pensioners a bonus. “Santa Claus will not skip them over,” she said, and there will be “something in their chimneys”.
The bonus is being extended to public sector employees in statutory authorities and government companies as well, but the premier said that they will need to find the money from their own budgets. She said the wider payout of $10 million will come out of the existing government’s operating budget and will not require extra funding.
Nevertheless, the additional nearly $10 million is likely to make Financial Secretary Kenneth Jefferson nervous, given that he already said the government was “sailing close to the wind” of a deficit this year. Even before this announcement of more spending, the most recent figures relating to government finances showed that in October, the UPM administration was expecting a surplus of around $16.5 million.
That was already a significant drop from the originally forecasted surplus of $44.5 million when the budget was put together one year ago. If this Christmas bonus extends to pensioners, seamen, veterans and those receiving financial assistance, it could wipe out the entire surplus.
The government has not yet released the third quarter unaudited results for the public sector, though it is understood those accounts have been completed. That report should reveal the government’s revenue collection and spending up to the end of September and expectations for the last three months of the year.
