A monthly salary compensation of Rs 1,000 would be paid to workers, across the board, as of January 2023. This was announced by the Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development, Dr Renganaden Padayachy, yesterday afternoon, after the Tripartite Meeting held at Sir Harilal Vaghjee Memorial Hall in Port Louis.
Government as well as representatives of employers’ and workers’ organisations gathered, at the Tripartite Meeting, under the chairmanship of the Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development to discuss, negotiate and agree the required amount to compensate for loss in purchasing power. It followed the Tripartite Technical Meeting pertaining to the salary compensation for the year 2023 which took place on 23 November 2022.
The Minister of Industrial Development, SMEs and Cooperatives, Mr Soomilduth Bholah, and the Minister of Labour, Human Resource Development and Training, Minister of Commerce and Consumer Protection, Mr Soodesh Callichurn, were also present at the event.
In a statement, Dr Padayachy recalled that this day’s Tripartite Meeting, though long, was in keeping with the tradition of negotiations and dialogue between employers’ and employees’ representatives under the mediation of Government. He affirmed that as a responsible Government, the objective was to find the best possible solution with a view to pursuing a stable socio-economic development.
According to the Finance Minister, the Tripartite Meeting enabled Government to listen to all parties’ demands and proposals; analyse them based on their potential impacts in various economic scenarios; and come up, after much work and efforts, with a salary compensation of Rs 1,000. He was adamant that the compensation would allow the country to reconcile and move forward post-COVID 19.
Moreover, Dr Padayachy thanked trade unionists and representatives of businesses for their participation in the discussions and their acceptance of the reasonable compensation amount. He underlined, too, Government’s efforts in favour of workers and talked of available facilities through the Mauritius Revenue Authority (MRA) and Business Mauritius to assist small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the payment of salary compensation to their employees.
As for Minister Bholah, he recalled that salary compensation brought with it challenges for SMEs but that support would be provided to businesses that struggled with the payment of the compensation. He highlighted that the required mechanisms to help these SMEs were already in place at the MRA.
