While in opposition, A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance for Change as separate political organisms berated and heavily criticized successive Peoples Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) Governments over their alleged mismanagement of public funds and waste in office.

These parties made a vow to never engage in high-handedness while in public office and to put the socioeconomic wellbeing of the people first.

They pledged that should they get into office they would never secure drawbacks, perks, super salaries and other benefits at the expense of the public purse. Their government would be “lean”.

As a matter of fact, it was Attorney-at-Law and now Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo who best demonstrated the then opposition’s condemnation for corruption and those desirous of leading a “Cadillac lifestyle in a donkey-cart economy” with the use of public funds.

So great was his scorn for “squander-mania” and concern for the poor and ordinary citizens that back in 2012 while supporting a motion to axe portions of the National Budget, Nagamootoo introduced the term “fat cats” in the National Assembly which he used to describe those public employees, contract workers and political appointees benefiting from super salaries that were “bleeding” the treasury.

Nagamootoo even told media in July of that year that the “office of the President was running a Dharam Shala for friends and cronies” expressing shock at the salaries that advisors and other Government officials were taking home when compared to the ordinary man and the pittances that they were offered as increases.

He is quoted as informing the tenth parliament that “We will use the scissors and not the sledgehammer. We will prune excesses and extravagance, and we will avoid waste on projects that we cannot undertake at this time. How well all of us do this, will test whether we are nationalists or just petty hustlers, unmindful of the needs of our people, and unresponsive to them”.

Now in Government, Prime Minister Nagamootoo appears comfortable with the fact that the David Granger administration has decided to consider granting Ministers, political Advisors, and Parliamentarians massive salary increases even though it has belaboured the point that the economy has slowed down and things are on the off-side.

Reports are that the increases for Ministers dwarf the pittances received by hard working public servants and so many Guyanese who are still living on and below the minimum wage.

Whether the planned increases are 20 per cent, 50 per cent or 100 per cent are not of import as the fact remains that they are unnecessary given the number of benefits that Ministers, Advisors and Members of Parliament already enjoy at the expenses of the state.

The argument put forward by President David Granger and his Finance Minister Winston Jordan, as reported in the press, is also worthy of condemnation. Paying this level of workers will not eliminate the temptation to put their hand in the cookie jar or engage in covert corrupt activity politically or otherwise.

Surely, these gentlemen know that Guyanese will not accept the rationale either that the planned increases were intended to distinguish various levels of power, ranking and responsibility within the cabinet and new Government.

The news of the planned increases was also untimely as there is no evidence anywhere within the State apparatus to prove that a proper evaluation was done to determine who and what should be doled out and on what basis.

It is also shameful that the Government has only been in power for three months and already there are discussions taking place on Cabinet members benefits and emoluments when the public has not been told exactly what it is getting from its monies in the form of salary increases, new development projects, stimulus incentives, tax reforms and other fiscal benefits aimed at lifting its standard of living.

One would have expected that Prime Minister Nagamootoo, who is a self-professed Jaganite that believes in conservatism, would have opposed such a discussion strongly and would have drawn the line regardless of the rationale displaying the same scorn he had back in 2012 for the creation of “fat cats” who were in his words could become “playful, prime and plump”.

If he did not then, as the man supposedly responsible for domestic affairs, time is still on his side.

Given the shocking reports that the new Government was attempting to buy a series of luxury vehicles, the multi-million dollar repairs to his home and that of the President to make comfortable and liveable to their standards, the dishing out of jobs to politically loyal and subservient PNC and AFC relics, and the ongoing decaying domestic and international bill of health of the economy, the PM and President Granger must act now.

After all fattening the political cat is merely the beginning and while it will prove costly, one has not even contemplated the damage sustaining its ‘milk stock’ will cost.

The Government has to do the morally correct thing and halt any or all increases planned regardless of the magnitude. Integrity demands it!