– Retroactive to January 1, 2025
Following Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo’s response to a question by the media yesterday that public servants and teachers will receive the previously agreed eight percent increase in salaries for 2025 before the September 1 national elections, Senior Minister in the Office of the President with Responsibility for Finance and the Public Service, Dr Ashni Singh, on Friday confirmed that this increase will be paid in July 2025.
“We would have all seen the question posed to Vice President Jagdeo at his most recent press conference in connection with the 2025 across the board eight per cent salary increase, and we would have also seen Vice President Jagdeo’s response to that question. I am delighted to confirm that the 2025 salary increase will be paid in July, together with July salaries, and will be retroactive to 1 January 2025 in keeping with the multi-year agreements signed with the unions,” Dr Singh said.
Dr Singh added, “It would be recalled that last year we concluded a number of historic multi-year agreements with several unions across the public sector, including the Guyana Teachers Union, the Guyana Public Service Union and other unions that represent employees at several other public sector agencies. Under these multi-year agreements, we saw an eight per cent across the board salary increase agreed for 2025.”
The minister explained that even in the case of unions representing workers in a number of public sector companies, such as the Guyana Oil Company (GUYOIL) and the Guyana Power and Light (GPL), as well as other agencies like the University of Guyana, multi-year agreements were concluded. Minister Singh described this as historic since this is the first time in recent memory that so many multi-year agreements were concluded with so many unions.
“This is an excellent thing, and it augurs very well for the industrial relations climate in Guyana, and it sends a very strong signal that collective bargaining is alive and is working extremely well in Guyana,” the Minister pointed out.
The Minister also pointed out that, since returning to office in August 2020, the government has implemented a multitude of other measures in the last five years to improve the lives of public servants and Guyanese across the country.
Public servants, teachers, members of the disciplined services and government pensioners have benefitted from annual salary increases of seven per cent in 2021, eight per cent in 2022, 6.5 per cent in 2023 and 10 per cent in 2024. On a cumulative basis, now with the eight per cent increase for 2025, these employees would have benefitted from a 46 per cent increase in total over the five-year period from 2021-2025.
As regards the public sector wage bill, under the PPP/C government, this grew by 66 per cent from $126.9 billion in 2020 to $210 billion in 2024, reflecting the across-the-board increases granted to workers, and the special salary adjustments made to selected categories of workers in the education, health and security sectors.
While making the announcement today on the payment of the eight per cent for 2025, Dr Singh also reminded Guyanese about all the various measures the government has implemented, which have been benefitting citizens across the country.
Under the current administration, there was an increase in the income tax threshold from $65,000 in 2020 to $130,000 in 2025, representing a doubling of the threshold from the time the government entered office. This has increased the disposable income of workers by $18 billion, removing over 60,000 persons from the tax net.
Another important measure implemented by the PPP/C Government has been the reduction in the personal income tax rate from 28 per cent and 40 per cent to 25 per cent and 35 per cent respectively for employed and self-employed persons, with effect from year of income 2025 which will increase the disposal income of more than 100,000 taxpayers.
In addition, based on this year’s budget and to reward productivity and effort, the government has provided relief to persons who earn overtime for work beyond their normal working hours, where the first $50,000 monthly of their overtime would be non-taxable. For persons who have a second job besides their primary job, the first $50,000 of income earned monthly from their second job would be non-taxable.
Dr Singh also highlighted that when the PPP/C came into office, it found that APNU had slashed the ceiling on mortgage interest relief, and the current administration changed this.
“This is the relief that we had introduced when we were previously in government, under which workers can claim as a deduction from their taxable income, the interest that they pay on their mortgages as a first-time homeowner, and we had set a ceiling previously of $30 million on such mortgages. APNU cut that ceiling to $15 million. As soon as we came back into government, we doubled the $15 million ceiling that APNU put in place, so persons may now claim the interest that they paid on First Time Home Ownership loans up to $30 million,” he explained.
Minister Singh recalled as well that the current government introduced a number of other very important benefits to workers.
“For example, we introduced a provision whereby, if you have medical insurance or you have life insurance, and you pay premiums on those medical and life insurance policies, you’re allowed a deduction from your taxable income of up to $50,000 per month, or 10 percent of your salary, whichever is lower,” he emphasised.
The Minister also highlighted another measure implemented by the Government in 2025, which is the introduction of a child tax allowance whereby, for each child, one parent is allowed to claim $10,000 monthly of their income as non-taxable.
Additionally, during the first term in office of President Irfaan Ali’s government, the one-month year-end bonus to the Disciplined Services was also reinstated. This bonus, it would be recalled, was withdrawn by the APNU/AFC, along with the long list of other benefits they withdrew from the population and the other hardship measures they callously implemented during their term in office.
“Looking ahead, we’ve heard our president and our vice president outlining the several very exciting things that we’re going to be doing during the next term of office to further improve the lives of every single Guyanese person, every single Guyanese family, and to increase their disposable income,” Dr Singh concluded.
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