While in con­ver­sa­tion with three friends who, like me, are pub­lic-ser­vice pen­sion­ers, the is­sue of pen­sions be­came the over­rid­ing sub­ject of dis­cus­sion and it be­came clear that there was a need to di­rect the at­ten­tion of the au­thor­i­ties and the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to the par­lous state in which most pen­sion­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly those of long-stand­ing, are very like­ly to have found them­selves and are there­fore in dire need of ur­gent re­lief. The an­nounce­ment by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al that ac­tion was to be tak­en to bring some mea­sure of re­lief to re­tired judges, many of whom are said to be in a state fi­nan­cial­ly, which is not com­men­su­rate with their for­mer dig­ni­ty and sta­tus, pro­vid­ed the ma­jor fil­lip in the dis­cus­sion. The group did not be­grudge the in­ten­tion to bring some mea­sure of re­lief to the judges. Far from it.

How­ev­er, note was tak­en of:

(a) The re­cent re­port of the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion rec­om­mend­ing in­creas­es and perquisites for min­is­ters, par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and some se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

(b) The neg­a­tive trend in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of in­come na­tion­al­ly; and the fact that re­tired pub­lic of­fi­cers, among oth­ers, are not be­ing al­lowed to ben­e­fit from in­creas­es in the net na­tion­al in­come.

(c) Es­pe­cial­ly the fact that pub­lic-ser­vice pen­sions, by not be­ing in­dexed or tied to any mean­ing­ful cri­te­ria, have lagged dis­as­trous­ly be­hind the val­ue of mon­ey on ac­count of in­fla­tion.

(d) That when some at­tempt had been made, in the past, to ad­dress this ob­vi­ous in­jus­tice, it has been in the form of an ar­bi­trary lump-sum in­crease, which the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance may an­nounce at the end of his bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion.

(e) That the present pen­sion arrange­ments were put in place at a time when life ex­pectan­cy of the av­er­age pub­lic-ser­vice pen­sion­er was per­haps about 65 years. This, how­ev­er, is a far cry to what ob­tains to­day, when the av­er­age pen­sion­er may ex­pect to reach the age of 80. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, many pen­sion­ers are to­day forced to live in ab­ject pover­ty and squalor.

(f ) While every now and again the mat­ter of a na­tion­al pol­i­cy for pen­sion re­form rears its head, noth­ing con­crete has been done. It is nev­er­the­less a cred­it to some mem­ber unions of the two trade union um­brel­la bod­ies that they have been mak­ing stren­u­ous ef­forts to have pen­sion pro­vi­sions in­clud­ed in new­ly-ne­go­ti­at­ed col­lec­tive agree­ments. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, such an en­light­ened ap­proach to pen­sion re­form seems not to be a mat­ter of pri­or­i­ty with the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion which seems to be wed­ded to the cur­rent pub­lic-ser­vice pen­sions mech­a­nisms.

With re­spect to pen­sion re­form gen­er­al­ly, the fol­low­ing are prof­fered:

(1) A na­tion­al pen­sion scheme should be put in place. Such a scheme should be con­trib­u­to­ry in na­ture. It is not­ed that:

(a) Ear­ly in his term of of­fice, the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance had said that pen­sion re­form would have been a pri­or­i­ty dur­ing his ad­min­is­tra­tion. How­ev­er, no word has been forth­com­ing of late, and while his pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with the Cli­co/HCU af­fair is ac­knowl­edged, one would hope that the mat­ter of pen­sion re­form would be kept on the front burn­er.

(b) In­deed, sight must not be lost of the ben­e­fits which are to be reaped by in­tro­duc­tion of a na­tion­al con­trib­u­to­ry pen­sion scheme such as:

(1) The pos­i­tive ef­fect that is like­ly to re­sult by way of greater mo­bil­i­ty of labour in that em­ploy­ees, whether from the pub­lic or the pri­vate sec­tor, would be en­abled to car­ry their pen­sion en­ti­tle­ments with them from one lo­ca­tion of em­ploy­ment to the oth­er, thus con­tribut­ing to greater hu­man re­source al­lo­ca­tion and ef­fi­cien­cy.

(2) Im­ple­ment­ing a na­tion­al con­trib­u­to­ry pen­sion scheme would, of course, re­lieve the Trea­sury of the bur­den of ever-in­creas­ing pro­vi­sions for pen­sion­ers at bud­get time. A spin-off ef­fect would, of course, be the in­creased de­mands which are cer­tain to be made by con­trib­u­tors at the in­tro­duc­tion of the scheme.

(3) The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance should en­deav­our to bring some mea­sure of re­lief to pub­lic ser­vice pen­sion­ers by, as it were, us­ing the equiv­a­lent cur­rent po­si­tion which a re­tiree had held at his or her re­tire­ment as a yard­stick for ad­just­ing pen­sions.

(4) Cur­rent pub­lic-ser­vice em­ploy­ees who have now at­tained the age of 50, say, should be drawn in­to the na­tion­al con­trib­u­to­ry pen­sion scheme.

(5) An ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tu­ar­i­al sur­vey and re­port should be com­mis­sioned, with pri­or­i­ty be­ing giv­en to the lev­el at which con­tri­bu­tions ought to be pitched in or­der for a smooth tran­si­tion to the new arrange­ments.

(6) With a prop­er­ly-func­tion­ing na­tion­al pen­sion and na­tion­al in­sur­ance sys­tem, calls on so­cial wel­fare would be ex­pect­ed to re­duce over time.

Er­rol OC Cu­pid

Trinci­ty, Tacarigua