On Monday, Navin Ramgoolam had a meeting with Narendranath Gopee, a public service unionist. After the meeting, the PTr leader held a press conference. He explained that several categories of civil servants deserve a salary increase. Nevertheless, he added that he is aware that the Pay Research Bureau can hardly do anything about it because it has to respect a salary scale. For him, nurses, nurses’ helpers, police officers, firefighters and primary school teachers deserve a pay review. “We have talked about all of this and how we should proceed,” said Navin Ramgoolam. The former Prime Minister stressed that the entire public sector, including the pension fund, needs to be reviewed. “There is a problem going on with the pensions but people don’t realize that. There will come a time when there will be no money to pay the pensions of public servants,” he added.
Navin Ramgoolam also said that Narendranath Gopee referred to trade unionists, associated with his federation, who have lost their jobs for trivial reasons. “One works at the Post Office, another at the Airports of Mauritius and the third at the Mauritius Revenue Authority. These people were made redundant for silly reasons. I have given no guarantee that the three trade unionists will be taken back,” he said.
Navin Ramgoolam also indicated that he will probably meet Ivan Bibi next week and called Yatin Varma “immature” who is missing the right target”.
