Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley is call­ing for a re­view of the pen­sion for Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment. He made the call dur­ing Wednes­day's sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Com­plex, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain. Fi­nance Min­is­ter, Win­ston Dook­er­an, pre­sent­ed the Fi­nance Bill 2002. It seeks to vary cer­tain du­ties and tax­es and in­tro­duces oth­er fis­cal pro­vi­sions. Row­ley said the pen­sion should be re­viewed "not in the con­text of us giv­ing our­selves any ex­tra ben­e­fit but putting in place prop­er pen­sion in place for Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans."

Row­ley said the work of a MP was a full-time job. Dook­er­an said in pre­sent­ing the bill that it was al­so seek­ing to in­crease MPs pen­sion. The bill seeks to amend sev­er­al pieces of leg­is­la­tion, in­clud­ing the Cen­tral Bank Act, the Pub­lic As­sis­tance Act; the Po­lice Ser­vice Act; the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Act, the Pris­ons Ser­vice Act and the Val­ue Added Tax Act. Row­ley was crit­i­cal of Dook­er­an for claim­ing that con­fi­dence in the T&T econ­o­my had been re­stored. Row­ley said all was not well in T&T. He said if the ma­jor is­sues af­fect­ing the na­tion were not prop­er­ly ad­dressed by the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment, T&T could end up in an eco­nom­ic cri­sis like Greece.