Public Servants receive 3 percent COLA

The Ministry of Finance and Treasury today confirmed that all Civil Servants this week received their 2024 Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) increment of 3% in their salaries.  This includes about 5,290 established (including immediate former Members of Parliament) and 600 non-established staff, and 1,260 casuals in all the Ministries and Departments and 76 pensioners.

This week’s COLA payout excludes Police and Teachers whose payroll run will be next week as it alternates with other Civil Servants.   In next week’s payroll around 2,280 Police officers and around 12,000 Teachers will receive their COLA increment of 3%.

The COLA payout this week came to around $4.5m for those civil servants and will be around $5.7m for Police and Teachers next week.  Salaries for this week and next week include COLA adjustments backdated to January 1, 2024.  Total COLA adjustment costs to Government in this year’s budget is around $42 million.

Permanent Secretary Finance and Treasury, Mckinnie Dentana, noted that there has been a delay to effecting these COLA increments because of the need to ensure correct adjustments done to salaries and wages within the Payroll System.

Given the tight timeframes between the weekly payroll cycle, Treasury along with SIG ICT Services technical support, needed to perform extensive testing of the COLA adjustment to ensure accurate results are achieved, as it can be very difficult to rectify data errors in the system, according to the Permanent Secretary.

The Permanent Secretary thanks all Public Officers for their patience and understanding of the delay, and requests any Public Officers who thought that their salary pay was not correctly adjusted to inquire with the Payroll Team in the Ministry of Finance and Treasury for assistance.

The Permanent Secretary also assures all Teachers and Police that their COLA Adjustment should be factored into their fortnight pay next week.

ENDS///

– Government Communication Unit