Opposition on reworked Tourist Board salaries 

By Dana Malcolm 

Staff Writer 

#TurksandCaicos, June 29, 2023 – ‘You’ve been lied to’ was the heading on the latest PDM Party release as Edwin Astwood, Opposition Leader, slams the Government for closing down the Tourist Board, describing them as money grubbing.

The latest letter was prompted by the report of reworked severance packages for the employees

“If you hire someone over 20 years, more or less, use them, benefit from them, and then change your mind about continuing to employ them because you think foreign workers who are less qualified than your people are better than your own TCI people, THEN THE LEAST YOU CAN DO IS PAY THEM THEIR BENEFITS.”

The Opposition leader continued, lashing both Washington Misick, TCI Premier and Josephine Connolly, Minister of Tourism.

“You, as an elected government, should not be listening to any foreign legal opinion or any Director’s opinion to decide that you, the PNP Government, no longer want to pay the Tourist Board Staff what they are owed, and what they have earned through their years of employment. Common sense and decency, or the minimum concern for your people would lead you as Premier and Minister of Tourism to insist that your people be paid what they are owed,” he maintained.

Astwood said there were “many falsehoods and untruths being released by the PNP Government” and maintained the board should never have been shut down.

“I continue to believe that all that was stated that the DMO would deliver, could have been delivered by enhancing the staff complement and expanding the functioning and offerings of the existing Tourist Board.”

Describing the touted tourism benefits as dubious Astwood listed facts that he said the public would do will to remember, including:

1. After promising staff that they would be getting redundancy and severance benefits they are now seeking to renege on those promises.
2. It is normal that severance and redundancy benefits are issues settled by law under the Employment Ordinance and I will add at my insistence, Common Decency.
3. No new redeployments in government or the DMO have been confirmed.

He said the issue was not a matter of law but of caring for residents expressing disdain at the reworked packages.

“Is this the kind of precedent this PNP Government wants to set in the TCI? That after the people deserving of this money, you promise them the pay, you then GO BEHIND their backs, you listen to a legal opinion, you listen to Directors, and then say the staff cannot be paid?”

The government has not said the staff will not be paid but indicated that some of the packages had ‘inaccuracies’ and staff would be getting less than what was initially quoted.

Magnetic media was told by staff that the issue stemmed from the minimum amount of years an individual should have worked to qualify for certain gratuities with a massive 8 year gap between the government’s claim of a ten year minimum and the employees initial quotes which were calculated using a two year minimum.

ASTWOOD described it as ‘more than a stab in the back’ and called for deserving payment for the workers and first right of refusal for available jobs in the PNP’s DMO,