Click to view full size

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

As the Gov­ern­ment pre­pares to pay a ten per cent wage in­crease and rough­ly $3.8 bil­lion in back­pay to pub­lic ser­vants, econ­o­mists say the fi­nan­cial and macro­eco­nom­ic ef­fects must not be un­der­es­ti­mat­ed.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, econ­o­mist Dr Mar­lene Attz said the set­tle­ment car­ries “two ma­jor costs”—the one-off back­pay and an ad­di­tion­al $420 mil­lion in re­cur­ring an­nu­al ex­pen­di­ture once the wage in­crease takes ef­fect.