Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has said many cit­i­zens have tak­en for grant­ed the im­pact of sev­er­al so­cial pro­grammes on their lives.

While de­liv­er­ing an ad­dress at the sod-turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the new San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal, the Prime Min­is­ter re­spond­ed to those who crit­i­cised his la­belling of old age pen­sion pay­ments as a pover­ty erad­i­ca­tion pro­gramme.

“The idea is that cash is hand­ed out to peo­ple to make their way in this coun­try. And I have to be ac­cost­ed by a la­dy that is so an­gry, so up­set that the Prime Min­is­ter could have told the Unit­ed Na­tions that we have a pover­ty erad­i­ca­tion pro­gramme in our coun­try. And she felt in­sult­ed by the fact that I could have said that,” said Row­ley who ex­plained that $4.7 bil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed to the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment for the pen­sion pro­gramme in the last fis­cal year, with an ad­di­tion­al 272 mil­lion in sup­ple­ment funds to bol­ster the pro­gramme.

“Al­most $5 bil­lion, the ma­jor­i­ty of it go­ing to peo­ple in an un­fund­ed by the re­cip­i­ent pro­gramme called old age pen­sion. Old age pen­sion’s a pen­sion which the gov­ern­ment alone funds. The cash comes straight from the trea­sury. There’s no con­tri­bu­tion from the re­cip­i­ent and that is in fact our so­cial safe­ty net.”

Row­ley took a jour­ney through his own past, and men­tioned that his grand fa­ther re­ceived a pen­sion of $14 which helped sup­port his fam­i­ly. He said the in­crease in pen­sions over the years has been al­lowed for many fam­i­lies to be sup­port­ed through the pay­ment.

“As the coun­try is able to do more, we do a bit more and more. If we were able to make it $10,000 we might have done that. In some coun­tries, you do have pay­ments which are quite sub­stan­tial a few coun­tries that are very wealthy have big cash in hand so they do a bit more. But most coun­tries there is no such pro­gram but we take it for grant­ed,” said the Prime Min­is­ter who al­so ar­gued that many coun­tries did not have sim­i­lar arrange­ments in place.

“It is not avail­able in every Caribbean coun­try. As a mat­ter of fact that kind of pay­ment is not avail­able in most coun­tries in the world. When I said that in the UN, there were 193 coun­tries were present. That pay­ment is not avail­able in the vast ma­jor­i­ty of those coun­tries. Where you don’t make a con­tri­bu­tion and you are guar­an­teed to get a pay­ment at the end of the month from a so­cial safe­ty net pro­gramme,” he said.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so not­ed that the state’s fi­nan­cial sup­port of ed­u­ca­tion was al­so be­ing tak­en for grant­ed by the pop­u­la­tion.

“In our coun­try, that cost is borne by the state. From kinder­garten, ear­ly child­hood cen­tres through pri­ma­ry school all the way up to even post-grad­u­ate de­grees at uni­ver­si­ty. It is paid for by the state. Take it for grant­ed. Be in­sult­ed if the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion says that,” he said, “Don’t ap­pre­ci­ate that it is be­ing done at oth­er peo­ple’s ex­pense be­cause while you are get­ting it some­body else is be­ing de­prived of some­thing else but you don’t care as long as you get it.”

The Prime Min­is­ter point­ed to the stu­dent loan sys­tem in the Unit­ed States as a con­trast.

“The rich­est coun­try in the world, the Unit­ed States. Go talk to them, about how much they owe that they could nev­er run away from. Once you in­cur it. You owe it and you will pay for it. That is your stu­dent loan. Stu­dent loan, you want to get your de­gree, you don’t have your cash in hand up­front to spend your own mon­ey? The on­ly oth­er op­tion for you to get that de­gree is if you lucky and you get a schol­ar­ship,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to a Sep­tem­ber study, more Amer­i­cans are in debt due to Stu­dent loans for col­lege ed­u­ca­tion than they are for cred­it cards and car loans.

The New York­er re­port­ed that 45 mil­lion Amer­i­cans were in debt due to Stu­dent loans to­talling over $1.5 tril­lion.

In Trinidad and To­ba­go, re­cip­i­ents of gov­ern­ment schol­ar­ships and in­di­vid­u­als who use Gov­ern­ment As­sis­tance for Tu­ition Ex­pense (GATE) are re­quired to work in Trinidad and To­ba­go for a spec­i­fied time­frame as a stip­u­la­tion for the fi­nan­cial sup­port af­ford­ed.