ST. GEORGE'S, GRENADA: LOCAL NEWSPAPER editor Leslie Pierre who in recent times has stoutly defended the policy of the government – has had a change of heart – at least on one issue. Pierre now says that government officials might not have been telling the whole truth on the controversial issue of back-pay for ministers. Up until now, the newspaper editor, who has lately be seen as an apologists for the government, agreed with the government’s explanation that the back-pay was not intended to make-up for their shortfalls. Pierre now says he is not so sure anymore that the recent controversial cabinet conclusion was not meant to give back government ministers all the money they would have lost when they took a voluntary salary cut in 1992. His comment on the issue came in his Personally Speaking column in the Grenadian Voice published here. Following the recent general elections, Grenadian ministers voted themselves a pay-hike and ordered that they be paid backpay on 1991 salaries even though they had taken a highly-publicized voluntary cut because of an economic crisis in 1992. Government critics cried foul saying that ministers had fooled in the nation and in the end they have made no sacrifices at all. But Pierre was not among those up until now. The newspaper editor wrote this week that he now thinks Minister of Finance Anthony Boatswain was being either, as he put it -- careless or economical with the truth when he claimed that there was no plan for the ministers backpay to make up for the salaries they had given up. Pierre now said that idea is an unconscionable and unprincipled thing to do. He had asked for the cabinet conclusions on the matter, but the Ministry of Finance has avoided publishing them. Pierre now challenges Minister Boatswain to publish both the original and amended cabinet conclusions on the issue and prove wrong the accusations they were trying to get back money they said they had given up. Pierre thinks both Minister of Finance Boatswain and Permanent Secretary Timothy Antoine have been giving him the "brush off" on the issue. "In all these circumstances I have come to the inescapable conclusion that the minister was being careless or economical with the truth when he claimed there was no plan for the ministers to claim backpay and make up for salaries they had given up," he wrote. SOURCE: CARIBUPDATE.COM