PANAMA’S Public sector wage increases, have been growing  at an unsustainable rate of 11 percent in recent years warns Minister of Economy and Finance Dulcidio De La Guardia.

State revenues have not grown at the same pace he said on Thursday Mar.23 and  announced that the Cabinet Council had authorized him to draw up a plan to contain salary increases.

The current administration, following a pattern of  its predecessors, has increased the state payroll and spending.

In 2016, the gross salary accumulated by public employees was $3.1 billion, $602 million more than at the close of 2014, when the administration began.

The increases are caused, in part, by special laws that force the adjustment of wages to certain groups of workers.