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Fi­nance Min­is­ter Vish­nu Dhan­paul is­sued a stark warn­ing to the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) over its per­ceived al­le­giance to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) “Coali­tion of In­ter­est.”

Speak­ing at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in St Joseph on Tues­day night, Dhan­paul said the UNC’s pro­posed fis­cal poli­cies could lead to pub­lic sec­tor job loss­es and long-term eco­nom­ic in­sta­bil­i­ty.

He said the back­pay and wage bill hike fromthe par­ty’s promise of a ten per cent in­crease in pub­lic sec­tor wages and salaries could cost at least $12 bil­lion. This would be com­pound­ed by pro­posed cuts to rev­enue streams, in­clud­ing a five per cent re­duc­tion in cor­po­ra­tion tax, elim­i­na­tion of prop­er­ty tax, ad­just­ments to the VAT base, and re­peal of the Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty Act — mea­sures which could strip the coun­try of near­ly $5 bil­lion in in­come, he said.