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Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Senate passes PM pension bill with independent bench support

by

Kejan Hyanes
15 days ago
20250630
Senate President Wade Mark speaks during the sitting of the Senate on Monday.

Senate President Wade Mark speaks during the sitting of the Senate on Monday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Ke­jan Haynes

The Sen­ate on Mon­day ap­proved the Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025, which now sets a min­i­mum one-year term in of­fice for any prime min­is­ter to qual­i­fy for a state pen­sion, with a tiered pay­ment struc­ture based on time served. Cru­cial­ly, the bill ap­plies retroac­tive­ly from March 10, 2025, dis­qual­i­fy­ing for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who served from March 17 to April 28.

The bill re­quired a three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty to pass in both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment, mean­ing the gov­ern­ment need­ed the sup­port of at least four sen­a­tors from ei­ther the In­de­pen­dent or Op­po­si­tion bench­es. The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives passed the bill on June 27 with 27 gov­ern­ment MPs in favour and 11 Op­po­si­tion MPs ab­stain­ing.

In the Sen­ate, the gov­ern­ment again se­cured the num­bers, with 20 sen­a­tors vot­ing in favour, none against, and 10 ab­stain­ing.

The pas­sage came one day af­ter the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) launched a di­rect at­tack on the In­de­pen­dent Sen­ate bench, ques­tion­ing their neu­tral­i­ty ahead of the vote. Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence on Sun­day, UNC PRO Dr Kirk Meighoo said if at least four In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors failed to sup­port the bill, they would be en­abling the PNM “to con­tin­ue to rape the Trea­sury, even in Op­po­si­tion.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors’ votes were key to the bill’s pas­sage. Here’s how they vot­ed:

✅ Vot­ed Yes

Mr. De­oroop Teemal

Mr. Michael de la Bastide SC

Mr. Fran­cis Lewis

Mr. Court­ney Mc Nish

Mrs. Ali­cia Lalite-Et­ti­enne

🚫 Ab­stained

Mr. An­tho­ny Vieira SC

Ms. Can­dice Jones-Sim­mons

Dr. De­sirée Mur­ray

Ms. Zo­la Phillips (tem­porar­i­ly re­plac­ing Dr. Mar­lene Attzs)

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