And Espat is only one of a troika of ministers of state that the PM currently has in his beefy portfolio. Chris Coye has held the position since the PUP got into office, but Jorge Espat has recently joined them. He's one of the backbenchers that were promoted in the last Cabinet shuffle. And you've heard complaints that the promotion was merely a tactic to reward the new ministers of state with taxpayer money.
Well, today, the prime minister said that, in fact, it isn't costing the taxpayer THAT much more. Here's how he explained it.
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I think they're the last to be able to talk because of what they did when they were in government, the point that I was trying to make is that first of all, it is not costing much to the voters or the taxpayers, why? Because they have been chairpersons of House Committees and that had increased their salary. Now they have become ministers of state, that is going to be reduced so they don't have an imbalance in the amount of monies they collected along with their colleagues. What is important is that they would be able to provide more work and do good work for the people in not only their consistencies but in the country to help the ministers. We have a lot of work ahead of us and we believe that time is coming up on us and we need to be able to get the work done."
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