Richard Lord

Min­is­ters in the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment are ve­he­ment­ly deny­ing a promise of a $3,000 month­ly Old Age Pen­sion to cit­i­zens at­tain­ing age 60. The de­nial comes in for­mer So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne's con­tri­bu­tion to yes­ter­day's de­bate on leg­is­la­tion to dis­con­tin­ue the Se­nior Cit­i­zens' Grant and re­place it with Old Age Pen­sion. It was up for de­bate ear­li­er in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives by Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh.

Browne is ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of breach­ing a con­tract with the cit­i­zen­ry in fail­ing to ho­n­our an elec­tion promise to in­crease pen­sions and re­duce the qual­i­fy­ing age from 65 to 60 years. On many an oc­ca­sions Browne's voice was drowned out by words of de­nial from Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters in­clud­ing Sport and Youth Af­fairs Min­is­ter Anil Roberts who shout­ed: "the pen­sion­able age is 65 years." Browne quot­ed two news­pa­per ad­ver­tise­ments pub­lished pri­or to the May 24 Gen­er­al Elec­tions, on May 19 and May 22, which clear­ly state that un­der a PP Gov­ern­ment, Old Age Pen­sion will be paid from age 60.

The ad read in part: "Up­on reach­ing pen­sion­able age (60) years, every cit­i­zen will au­to­mat­i­cal­ly qual­i­fy for a state-fund­ed Old Age Pen­sion." A cho­rus of Op­po­si­tion MPs, led by Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley and in­clud­ing, Chief Whip Mar­lene Mc Don­ald, for­mer Works Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert and Browne, shout­ed across the floor: "Shame on you! Shame on you!" Browne said Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was not forth­right in deal­ing with the is­sue. He ac­cused her Gov­ern­ment of de­ceiv­ing the pop­u­la­tion in its elec­tion promis­es. He said thou­sands of se­nior cit­i­zens would be dis­en­fran­chised by the pro­posed changes. Per­sad-Bisses­sar has pub­licly de­nied ever promis­ing to re­duce the pen­sion­able age to 60 years.