Are some people in the VI starving?
The caller said he heard people saying that there are some people on Tortola starving and while he couldn’t confirm that he was aware that some people have been finding it difficult to cope with their meagre salaries.
Living pay check to pay check
“We have a serious problem of people living from pay check to pay check…they can’t even save a dollar,” the caller said while commenting that hospital bills are so high that some people when they seek medical attention end up with bills amounting to more money than what they are earning.
“When you go to the hospital you have to pay more money than you making a week, so consider that. That could not be fair at all.”
The same caller pointed out that some persons have been working with certain companies for 25 to 30 years and have not been seeing any significant increase if any at all, which he also said was not fair and that the Minimum Wage Committee needed to look into.
“…and these companies making a lot of dollars all the time and is the same money you making? It is not fair, the caller argued.
The show was co-hosted by Mr Cromwell Smith aka Edju En ka and Mr Natalio D. Wheatley aka Sowande Uhuru.
According to Mr Smith, he also had issue with some employees being in the middle income range and who “work for years and years and years without any increase. [They] don’t get a raise at all.”
Businesses need to take lead role in economy- Smith
The talk show host, himself a businessman, said he is of the view that businesses should take a stewardship role of the economy. “Why we can’t understand as business people that we need to have a more equitable distribution of wealth and [that there] needs to be a harmonious relationship between employer/employees and government for this, to have a society thrive and the people to have a better quality of life and live in peace and be happy?”
Meanwhile, the Minimum Wage Committee has been holding several public consultations to arrive at recommendations for a review of the current minimum wage, which currently sits at $4 per hour, a level it has been at since 1999.
The committee is to submit its report to government with the recommended figure towards the end of April or early May 2015.
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