00:00Confirmation from Finance Minister Devension of Tanku today that Budget 2026 does not include allocations or estimates for the much-anticipated 10% wage increase to public servants.
00:13The proposed salary increase that you are referring to, I assume, is the PSA negotiation that is due to start?
00:21Is that the salary negotiation that you are referring to?
00:23Yes, I am.
00:24With the greatest respect, during the budget debate, I indicated that negotiations hasn't started yet.
00:28So, therefore, that is not included.
00:31We cannot include, unlike the PNM before, we cannot include in absentia something that has not happened yet.
00:40However, the opposition insisted that given the government's commitment to delivering on this promise,
00:46it could have and should have budgeted an estimated figure to settle the negotiations, to which the minister had this to say.
00:53There has been no negotiations started, so the assumption that there's a 10%, 12%, 0%, 5%, whatever your assumption is, is irrelevant at this point.
01:04We have to wait, and your version of accounting might be different, but we have to wait as a government until there is a negotiation started,
01:13before we preempt and put some arbitrary figure in the numbers. That is common sense.
01:17Attempts to define a timeline for the settlement of the negotiations also proved futile.
01:23So, I am asking, on the piggyback of that, does the Minister of Finance expect these wage negotiations to be completed before the end of the fiscal year?
01:32It's a simple question.
01:34Minister, sorry, member, this has been asked and answered very, very clearly already.
01:44There is no negotiation now. We are dealing with figures in front of you.
01:48Please focus on the documents that are in front of you.
01:51The comments came during the Standing Finance Committee's deliberation of expenditure for the Ministry of the People,
01:57during which it was also revealed that no allocation has been set aside for the expected increase in NIS contributions,
02:05effective January next year.
02:07Was this allocation made in contemplation of the increase in the NIS payments,
02:12which you confirmed are paid from this line item for 140 workers?
02:19The opposition continued on its quest to prove that the government had understated expenditures in the 2026 budget
02:35by questioning how the ministry intends to pay the workers for positions currently advertised as vacant
02:42through the government's national recruitment drive.
02:46A fund called the Employment Fund was created at the Ministry of Finance,
02:52to which an allocation has been made.
02:55That allocation is for the funding of employment generally.
02:59So I'm assuming that should there be need, we can draw from that fund for this purpose,
03:06or any other employment purpose under the government.
03:10So I'm clarifying then that the over 600 persons being advertised here,
03:16as well as if there are other vacancies, because it's 20,000,
03:19those persons are going to be paid out of the unemployment fund
03:22and not from the line items in the different ministries.
03:24That's not what I said.
03:26But please go ahead.
03:27If sufficient, if there is need for additional support for employment creation specifically,
03:35there is a fund that has been created for that purpose.
03:38As of midday Monday, over 30,000 people had applied for jobs.
03:43Renessa Cutting, TV6 News.
03:46Renessa Cutting, TV6 News.
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